



--'V^^/i- 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

©]^. ^ 8ijjt:jni3l;l l^n . 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



Circumstantial Evidences 



OF 



CHRISTIANITY. 



BY 



DANIEL CAREY. 



/^ 






-APR ■!! 1E81/J 



CINCINNATI: 
WALDEN AND STOWE. 

NEW YORK: PHILLIPS & HUNT. 
1881. 



Copyright by 

WALDEN & STOWE 

1881. 



PREFACE. 



The matter contained in the following 
chapters, taving at first a somewhat different 
form, was designed to be read to a small 
group of doubting or unbelieving friends. 
When the purpose of seeking a larger audi- 
ence, which should include these, was formed, 
changes were made in the way of adaptation ; 
but as a few passages retain traces of the 
earlier purpose, and of the surroundings of the 
writer, this slight explanation is made to those 
whose attention may be called to this fact. 

I will also explain a feature of the book 
which may appear objectionable. No refer- 
ences are made to the Bible by citing chapter 
and verse, nor to other writings by citing the 
chapter or page of the book. 

Where citations of this kind are made, 



4 PREFACE. 

while the passage so referred to may present 
itself clearly to the writer, it forras no part 
of the argument as it presents itself to the 
reader, because the passage, usually not en- 
tirely familiar, certainly will not in most cases 
be looked up. Accordingly, what I have de- 
sired to use at all I have quoted in full, at 
the risk of being tedious. 

The number and length of the quotations 
from modern writers will be excused by those 
who observe that a part of the work under- 
taken was to show that facts made conspicu- 
ous by modern skeptical writers confirm the 
claim of Jesus to the Messiahship. 

DANIEL CAEEY. 

KocHELLE, III., Feb. 17, 1881. 



CONTENTS. 



I. A Statement of General Facts, 7 

II. A Statement of General Facts — Continued, 42 

III. The Purpose of the Old Testament, .... 76 

IV. The Purpose of the Old Testament— Con'd, 108 
V. The Character of the Old Testament, ... 137 

VI. The Existence of Prophecy as a Fact of His- 
tory shown in the Experience of Cities 

and Nations, 173 

VII. The Messianic Prophecies viewed from a 

Modern Stand-point, 221 

VIII. The Messianic Prophecies viewed from a 

Modern Stand-point — Continued, . . . 251 

IX. The Messianic Prophecies viewed from a 

Modern Stand-point — Continued, . . . 275 



dii^durq^tki\tikl ^vi(iei\de^ 



OF 



CHRISTIANITY. 



Chapter I. 

A STATEMENT OF GENERAL FACTS. 

WHAT view shall we take of the statements 
made by the New Testament writers in 
regard to Jesus? This involves the question 
of the supernatural origin of Christianity. 

The existence of the statements involving 
the supernatural has been accounted for in va- 
rious ways. In the language of Hume and 
Paine, the New Testament writers were liars. 
Later, and perhaps more careful, students of 
the character of Jesus and the New Testament 
writers have used more respectful language. 
Strauss regards the character of Jesus as largely 
mythical, or as being, to a large extent, a per- 
sonification of certain religious ideas. Renan 



8 CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCES. 

finds this view an insufficient explanation of 
known facts ; and, thougli he modifies the view 
of Strauss but little, he gives more prominence 
to what he believes to be credible in the Gospels, 
and says that at the head of the Christian move- 
ment there must have been a man of colossal 
proportions. But it is his view that, between 
the death of Jesus and the writing of the books 
of the New Testament, legends and traditions of 
the early Church came to be believed, which give 
to the New Testament its supernatural character. 
From the title, ^^ Circumstantial Evidences 
of Christianity,^^ it is probably understood that 
an effort will be made to present facts which 
confirm the belief that the statements made by 
the New Testament writers in regard to Jesus 
are substantially true. The expression, sub- 
stantially true, is used, because no effort will be 
made to show that the New Testament writers 
were strictly infallible, and incapable of any 
defect of memory, in the rehearsal of unim- 
portant details ; but the effort will be to con- 
firm the belief that the statements of what 
purport to be important facts — those which 
give to the life of Christ its supernatural char- 
acter — are trustworthy. 



STATEMENT OF FACTS. 9 

The supernatural events in the life of 
Christ, as a believer views them, are not iso- 
lated events, having no rational or logical 
connection with the rest of the world's history. 
There was a long train of preceding events, 
intimately associated with the coming of Christ, 
leading up to it, and having an important 
bearing upon the credibility of the statements 
made in the IsTew Testament in regard to the 
events of his life. There have been important 
and well-known results of the life of Christ, 
having a similar bearing on the credibility of 
those statements. If both these classes of facts, 
with others having a bearing on the case, are 
ignored, we shall perhaps arrive at the apho- 
rism of Hume, " It is contrary to experience 
that a miracle should occur ; it is not contrary 
to experience that men should lie,'' with the 
conclusion to which experience is here sup- 
posed to point; but in arriving at this we may 
miss the truth. 

The statements concerning Christ are not 
statements of a series of flashes of lightning 
and peals of thunder from a cloudless sky. 
To use this somewhat worn illustration — the 
moisture-bearing wind, the sultry air, and the 



10 CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCES. 

gathering clouds which precede a shower, and 
the moist condition of the ground, the swollen 
streams and freshened fields seen after a 
shower, have been discovered in this case. 
These facts, which make the events of the life 
of Christ something quite different from iso- 
lated events, may be read from nature, from 
history, and from the state of things at the 
present time, as the meteorologist reads the 
facts in regard to the natural shower from his 
self-registering apparatus. 

The consideration of certain general facts, 
which incline the mind to' investigate the truth 
of Christianity, will constitute our introduction 
to the consideration of facts which have a more 
immediate bearing on the credibility of the 
New Testament account of Christ. 

If I were thrown by shipwreck, destitute, 
upon an island which I fully believed to be 
uninhabited, and the granite peaks or barren 
sands appeared to confirm this belief, and if, 
while so situated, a sound were borne across 
the waste that seemed to be a human voice 
inviting me to shelter, food, and clothing, I 
should be prepared to pronounce the sound a 
delusion. But if we suppose the situation 



STATEMENT OF FACTS. 11 

SO far changed that the island on which I 
had been thrown was green with thriving 
vegetation, that I saw in the sand upon the 
beach the prints of human feet, that I saw, a 
little inland, the hospitable smoke rising from 
some domestic fire, and that, while so situated, 
a sound were borne to me which seemed to be 
a human voice inviting me to shelter, food, 
and clothing, my surroundings would already 
have led me one step towards belief, and I 
should be eager to learn the truth. In ap- 
proaching the question of the truth of Chris- 
tianity, we have a right to that frame of mind 
which results from the fact that the footprints 
of the Creator are visible on every hand 
about us. 

The idea of a God appears to be found ex- 
isting in the mind as the idea of justice is 
found existing there, apparently innate; but 
the train of thought by which this idea is 
strengthened, if it previously existed, or by 
which it is gained if it did not previously 
exist, is perhaps nearly that of the following 
argument : 

We may classify the various objects known 
to us, according to their resemblances, with 



12 CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCES. 

reference to the fact that they do or do not in 
their structure manifest thought. We shall 
then have in one class all unorganized matter; 
for though the theist does not consider inor- 
ganic matter destitute of arrangement, as the 
stage on which manifestations of a higher 
order shall appear, the want of organic struc- 
ture leaves a mass of earth, or stone, or metal, 
without any manifestation of thought that can 
be readily discerned. 

In the other class will be all objects of the 
organic world, from the most minute vegetable 
known to the gigantic trees of California, and 
from the mote whose organic structure can 
only be discerned when magnified several mill- 
ions of diameters to the mammoth and the 
whale. But the class that has been indicated 
will contain more. It will contain organized 
objects, the plan of whose organization orig- 
inated in the mind of man, from the toy that 
pleases the infant fancy for a moment and is 
consumed to the Crystal Palace, with all that 
artisan and artist can exhibit there ; from the 
screw whose thread can only be discerned with 
the help of the microscoj)e to the railroad, with 
its accompaniment of telegraphs and telephones. 



STATEMENT OF FACTS. 13 

Having made this classification, tlie fact in 
relation to it which most fully enlists our atten- 
tion is the completeness of the resemblances on 
which the classification is made. Very manyi 
of the thoughts manifesting themselves in ob- 
jects of art have their counterpart in the 
thoughts manifesting themselves in objects of 
nature. Mention of a few will recall the 
many with which we are familiar. However 
rapidly a man's hand may move, when busy, 
his eye continually attends it. At each mo- 
ment the axis of his eyeball is so directed as 
to receive light from the point requiring his 
attention. These movements are effected by 
muscles attached at the back part of the bony 
socket of the eye and extending forward to 
various parts of the eyeball. Among these is 
one so arranged as to cause an inward and 
downward movement of the eye when that 
movement is required. There was not room 
for this muscle to extend in the direction in 
which the motion was to be made, and have 
space to contract and expand, without inter- 
fering with other organs. A muscle, however, 
extending in the same direction as the other 
muscles attached at the back part of the socket, 



14 CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCES. 

and neatly packed with them, could, and in 
reality does, perform this work, by having its 
tendon pass through a loop and turn at right- 
angles to the direction in which the muscle 
extends. There is a suggestive similarity be- 
tween this arrangement and the various arrange- 
ments made with rope and pulley; as when a 
farmer passes a rope around pulleys fixed at 
two well-selected points, and places his hay 
where he wishes to have it, while his horse 
moves horizontally along the ground. 

The brain is protected by a well-made box 
of hard and tough material ; the fluids of the 
eye, by a firm and tough material. Hard ma- 
terials, also, are found wlierever supports and 
levers are needed, interspersed with elastic 
yielding material, w^here this is needed, at the 
joints. These are arrangements like those 
which suggest themselves to the mind of man 
when circumstances require them. The dark 
inner coating of the eye prevents the reflection 
of stray rays of light which would confuse the 
image; so does the dark inner surface of a 
telescope. The crystalline lens refracts rays 
of light to the extent required; so do the 
lenses of a telescope. 



STATEMENT OF FACTS. 15 

These manifestations of thought are facts, 
as much so as the materials in which the 
thoughts are wrought. They are effects also. 
The cause of these manifestations of thought 
in one case is the mind of man, a personal 
being. The effects are similar. Are the causes 
similar? Where causes are sought in other 
cases, like effects are traced to like causes. 
The cause of a drift of sand and gravel found 
in the deserted bed of a river is like the cause 
of a drift of snow. Each is a deposit from a 
fluid whose motion has been checked by some 
obstruction, though the fluids are not the 
same. The existence of such drifts under the 
lee of obstructions which the current could 
not remove, lying along the course of what is 
believed to be the deserted bed of a river, 
would be received as evidence that causes 
analagous to those which produce the snow- 
drift were once active there. 

Glaciers, now existing on high mountains 
and in polar latitudes, as their lower borders 
advance in Winter to a lower level, and recede 
in Summer under the increased heat, leave 
certain effects or traces, which have been care- 
fully studied. The melting of the lower por- 



16 CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCES. 

tion of the glacier leaves a dreary waste of 
stones released from the ice in which they had 
been imbedded. The advance of the glacier 
each Winter presses these scattered stones for- 
ward and downward toward the lower limit 
of this advancing and receding movement. In 
this way an accumulation, or wall, of these 
stones is formed at the lower limit of the 
glacier. Somewhat similar accumulations form 
at the sides of the lower portion of the glacier. 
Parallel scratches, or marks, are made in the 
bed rock of the bottom and sides of the valley 
in Avhich the' glacier is working. These are 
made by fragments of stone imbedded in the 
moving ice at the surface w^hich moves over 
the rock. The parallel marks resemble those 
made by the teeth of a large stifP harrow 
drawn across a smooth field. Effects in every 
respect resembling these, whatever may have 
been the cause, have been found in nearly all 
the explored parts of the world, even in re- 
gions which now have tropical climates. It is 
difficult to understand how the whole world 
could have been so cold as to have permitted 
the general action of glaciers ; but, against all 
difficulties, geologists have arrived at a belief 



STATEMENT OF FACTS. 17 

in a glacial period during which glaciers ex- 
isted in nearly all parts of the world. Such 
is the force of similar effects in leading men 
to believe in similar causes. The sole ground 
of belief in a glacial period is the resemblance 
of certain effects found in various parts of the 
world to the effects now being produced by 
glaciers. 

The thoughts manifested in nature did not 
originate in the human mind; but the com- 
plete resemblance between these thoughts and 
those which did originate there intimates an 
origin in something that works as the human 
mind works, and is capable of originating 
thoughts as the human mind is. Analogy is 
not proof. We do not say that, because very 
many manifestations of thought originated with 
personal beings, no thought could manifest it- 
self in any other way ; but a long and uniform 
experience in tracing like effects to like causes 
leads us to think this theory greatly more 
probable than any other. 

What we know of the origin of certain or- 
ganized structures is not more suggestive than 
what we know of the order in which the va- 
rious steps in their construction progressed. 
2 



18 CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCES. 

In every instance the ideal preceded the leal. 
The house was planned before it was built. 
A farmer, whose hay and grain have been 
spoiling in the storms, may for years have 
been carrying about in his mind a barn, 
thoroughly finished and well painted from 
basement to cupola. Perhaps in future it will 
be so embodied in solid materials that he may 
use it, and other people may see it. The point 
important to our illustration is not the length 
of time an ideal structure may be carried in 
the mind, but the fact that in the construction 
of whatever manifests thought the conception 
in the mind precedes the arranging of the 
materials in which the thought shall at last 
be manifested. 

There is much discussion as to the priority 
of matter or mind, and as to the eternity of 
God's existence, into which we need not enter 
while merely inquiring whether there are inti- 
mations in nature of God's existence. The 
intimation we receive from the consideration 
just stated is that a conception of the plans, 
simple and complex, which we see manifested 
in the organized structures about us, existed in 
something analogous to the human mind, when 



STATEMENT OF FACTS. 19 

materials, which before existed as unorganized 
matter only, began to move and arrange them- 
selves so as to form the structures which now 
manifest thought. 

Our knowledge of the human mind and of 
its mode of existence is imperfect, and our 
conception of God and his mode of existence 
is doubtless still more imperfect; but we are 
conscious of our own thoughts, and know 
something of the working of the human mind. 
The intimation received from the complete re- 
semblance between the machinery which has 
originated with men and that discovered in 
nature is, that the human mind, however it may 
exist, is the best type we have of that with 
which those thoughts originated which are 
manifested in organized nature, as those of the 
hand and the eye. To many minds it appears 
that the power which could originate the 
thoughts manifested in nature could originate 
the thoughts which pertain to a revelation; 
and that the power which could so modify the 
action of force and the properties of matter — 
so control the laws of nature — that where, be- 
fore a certain period, only unorganized matter 
existed, portions of this matter began so to 



20 CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCES. 

arrange themselves as to form organized beings, 
could also so control the laws of nature as to 
produce all the signs of its superhuman origin 
that are claimed to have accompanied such a 
revelation. 

The argument based on the thoughts man- 
ifested in the material world will be pursued, 
in connection with objections urged against it, 
after we have noted the fact that intimations 
we receive from the material world are sec- 
onded by an intimation from the structure of 
the human mind. There is a religious faculty, 
of which man alone of the animal world is 
possessed. In the exercise of this he forms 
religious conceptions, and performs religious 
acts. This faculty is accompanied by a moving 
force, which has impelled men in all ages and 
in all countries to the performance of religious 
acts, as the instinct of an animal impels it to 
those acts which are necessary to its existence. 
We here find tendrils of the mind, which stretch 
upward and clasp some God, real or imaginary, 
and cling to that Being with unyielding per- 
sistence. There seems to be implanted in hu- 
man nature a reminder of God's existence, 
with an impulse towards his worship. If a 



STATEMENT OF FACTS. 21 

theory is recommended by its explaining 
known facts^ then the theory that there is a 
God who designed men to be religious is rec- 
ommended by its being a simple and sufficient 
explanation of the facts just mentioned in re- 
gard to the mind. This intimation of God's 
existence should be associated with those before 
mentioned. It should here be stated^ also, 
that this intimation of God's existence is not 
derived from some special theory of the mind, 
but from such manifestations as may be studied 
without regard to theories. 

The chief opposition to the doctrine of 
God's existence has taken the form of a rival 
theory, which considers nature sufficient for 
the production of all that exists, not excepting 
intelligent and moral beings. 

I will state a few reasons for doubting the 
correctness of this theory : 

1. It is built on the development hypoth- 
esis, or theory of evolution, which is not yet 
so established as to be a secure foundation for 
so important a suj)erstructure. The develop- 
ment hypothesis accords with many facts, and 
it is received by many Christians; but when 
it is made the foundation of a theory so im- 



22 CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCES. 

portant, and yet so cheerless, as that which is 
here built on it, we incline to examine it more 
carefully. That the development hypothesis 
may be used to explain the course of nature, 
several points must be assumed; and around 
each of these assumed points there is a dark 
shading of doubt. Take as an example that 
part of this hypothesis which supposes men 
and monkeys to have descended by slightly 
diverging lines from the same species, a spe- 
cies which has long been extinct. Consider 
the very great number of animals of high or- 
ganization that must have existed between 
that extinct species and man. As a help in 
forming a conception of that multitude, con- 
sider not only the great number of human 
beings that have existed, but the very slow 
progress that has been made, if any has 
been made, towards development into some 
higher species that is to follow man. History, 
sculpture, and painting give some idea of man 
during three thousand years past. Certain hu- 
man remains are thought to belong to periods 
much earlier ; and of these some skulls assigned 
to early periods are of a high order. During 
the period in which man has existed no such 



STATEMENT OF FACTS. 23 

radical change has taken place as would fur- 
nish the imagination a clew by which it might 
forecast^ not the coming man, but the coming 
species, by whatever name it is to be called. 
We have no reason to suppose that the prog- 
ress of development was more rapid in the 
past. As nature advances by moderate steps, 
and not by strides, the species which immedi- 
ately preceded man must have possessed an 
organization nearly equal to that of man. 
That species probably existed several thou- 
sands of years, and numbered in its successive 
generations many millions of individuals, as 
millions of individuals have formed the suc- 
cessive generations of men. The period of this 
species of animals must have been preceded by 
that of another species but little inferior, which 
existed for thousands of years, and numbered 
its millions of individuals. And so the imag- 
ination, without minutely specifying, finds its 
way back to the species from which both men 
and monkeys have descended. If these mill- 
ions of animals of high organization have ex- 
isted, is it not probable that during the past 
seventy-five years of search some traces of 
their existence would have been discovered? 



24 CIRCURISTANTIAL EVIDENCES. 

Frail animals, with no bony skeleton, left traces 
of their existence all along the ages of geol- 
ogy; tender plants left their impress on the 
rocks ; the little rain-drop, falling by its 
own Aveight, and driven by the wind of some 
storm which preceded the human age, left its 
mark on the mud and sand since turned to 
stone; but these unnumbered millions of be- 
ings, possessed of organizations but little below 
that of man, died and left no trace of their 
existence that has yet been discovered, though 
such traces have been diligently sought. 

While this dark shading of doubt lingers 
about the several assumed points of this hy- 
pothesis, its stability can not be considered 
entirely assured. As we step on to it, bear- 
ing the timbers of the dark structure to be 
raised above it, a tremulous movement under 
the foot sends through the mind a thought of 
possible moving of quicksands below. Per- 
haps there is in this foundation something that 
is not quite solid. 

2. The theory that nature is sufficient ig- 
nores, or leaves unused, the suggestion fur- 
nished by those structures with whose origin 
we are acquainted. We know that thoughts 



STATEMENT OF FACTS. 25 

are continually originated by personal beings. 
We do not know that a single thought ever 
originated in any other way. Having been 
accustomed to ask ourselves, "How shall we 
reason but from what we know?'^ we must 
ever doubt the propriety of neglecting so plain 
a suggestion, while w^e also feel an incomplete- 
ness in a theory which purports to account for 
what is seen in nature, and yet suggests no 
origin for the thoughts that are manifested 
in it. 

When we stand before the open door of a 
clock w^e readily trace its movements to the 
action of gravity on its weights and pendu- 
lum, and to the materials of which the clock 
is made. All these movements are reduced to 
force and matter. Bat what of the origin of 
the clock? Our thoughts turn to certain op- 
eratives who are making wheels and cords and 
weights, and who for years have been making 
wheels and cords and weights like those which 
existed before. Here we have an account of 
the clock into which we are looking. Still, 
our theory of clocks is not complete, and it 
will not be complete till it contains some 
thought of an inventor. We stand in the 



26 CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCES. 

presence of nature to watch its movements, as 
we stand before the open door of the clock. 
Its movements are reduced to force and mat- 
ter. But what of the origin of those structures 
which manifest thought ? We find that in the 
presence of vitality, whatever that may be, the 
laws of nature have power to reproduce those 
structures which existed before. Under the 
influence of instinct the bees and spiders of 
to-day trace out the same plans that were 
manifested in the combs and w^ebs of antiquity. 
So under the influence of vitality the thoughts 
manifested in the structure of animals and 
plants are reproduced from generation to gen- 
eration. The living egg of a turkey produces 
a turkey. The living egg of a hen produces 
a hen. The living acorn that drops from an 
oak produces an oak. Here we have an ac- 
count of the animals and plants within our 
observation. Still our theory of animals and 
plants is not complete. We inquire concern- 
ing the beginning of this process of hereditary 
descent, and ask for some adequate source of 
the thought or plan which we find reproduced 
from generation to generation along one of 
these lines. We can not feel that our theory 



STATEMENT OF FACTS. 27 

is complete till it contains some thought of an 
inventor. 

Those who are convinced of the soundness 
of the theory of evolution believe that along 
these lines of descent changing conditions have 
so modified the plans of organization that ex- 
isted ages ago as to produce adaptations which 
did not then exist. The following questions 
are suggested for their consideration : " Can 
those adaptations which have manifested them- 
selves under these changed conditions, and 
which were not seen in the plan as it existed 
ages agO; be considered intimations of God^s 
existence ?" " Were not these adaptations 
made by change of climate and change of 
other conditions, rather than by God ?" " Does 
not the discovery of these modifications de- 
stroy the force of those intimations which were 
received from nature?" 

Waiving for the present some doubt as to 
whether these radical changes have taken 
place, it will not be best to overlook these in- 
quiries. To my mind the intimations of God^s 
existence are neither destroyed nor diminished 
in force. If it is true that any line of hered- 
itary descent has not only passed through many 



28 CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCES. 

individuals, but througli several related species, 
then perhaps all we have discovered bearing 
on the question under consideration is, that the 
plan according to which this line of descent 
was at its beginning forecast contains more 
than it was once supposed to contain. An 
examination of an animal shows it to be 
adapted to the mode of life it is leading; but 
such examination will not assure us that w^e 
have seen all of the plan of the species of an- 
imals to which it belongs. The caterpillar has 
an arrangement of muscles and other organs 
adapting it to the life it is leading; and yet 
the plan which may be traced in the cater- 
pillar is only part of a more complex plan — a 
single phase of a varying existence. There is 
as yet no hint of wings; but w^hen wings ap- 
pear, and an entire adaptation to a new mode 
of life is seen, we perceive that we had before 
discovered but part of the plan ; we do not on 
that account say that no plan at all of this 
species of animals was forecast. The capabil- 
ity of taking this modification of its organiza- 
tion existed in some invisible way in the 
worm, and was a part of the plan of its be- 
ing, as much as the arrangement of organs by 



STATEMENT OF FACTS. 29 

which it was enabled to pursue its career as a 
caterpillar. 

If nature is proceeding in its course accord- 
ing to certain preconceived plans, there may 
be provision in those plans for modifications 
of the structure, which reappears from genera- 
tion to generation along some line of hereditary 
descent. If modifications amounting to adap- 
tations which did not exist before, and amount- 
ing to change of species, are facts, the indica- 
tion here discovered is, not that the course of 
those reproductions is following - no precon- 
ceived plan, but that part of the plan is a 
degree of flexibility permitting such modifica- 
tions as will enable this line of descent to 
continue under changed conditions. 

To a limited extent, men give to machines 
of their making this power of adaptation to 
changing conditions. I will illustrate this 
thought by means of machinery with which peo- 
ple in many neighborhoods are quite familiar. 
Some years ago windmills designed for pump- 
ing water were introduced. They were made 
after a simple but inflexible plan, which did 
not admit of any modification of form under 
the varying force of the wind. When the 



30 CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCES. 

wind blew moderately they did well. When 
the wind grew violent they were dashed to 
pieces. Relics may perhaps be fonnd on some 
farms, which give evidence at once of the 
former existence of these mills and of the oc- 
casional occurrence of winds which did not 
permit their continued existence. So relics 
found in the rocks give evidence at once of 
the former existence of animals and plants, 
the plan of whose being did not enable them 
to continue dov-n to the present time, and of 
the occurrence of those changes of climate 
and of other conditions which destroyed them. 
After the mills just referred to had run a short 
career, or perhaps overlapping the same period 
to some extent, other windmills appeared, ca- 
pable of taking certain modifications of form; 
not the same in every case, but all taking such 
modifications as would enable them to pass 
uninjured through the occasional gales. We 
may suppose one who had been familiar with 
the earlier mills to have first seen a specimen 
of these when at a little distance from it, and 
just as a storm was coming on. Noticing that 
as the wind rises the mill takes a modification 
of its form, he says, " I believe the wind does 



STATEMENT OF FACTS. 31 

that." Continuing Ms observation^ and notic- 
ing that as the wind increases the modification 
of form increases, he adds, "Yes, I see, the 
wind does it," And his conjecture is right. 
The wind does it. We will not suppose him 
to add, " I am persuaded that the changes in 
other features which differ from those of the 
earlier mills were also caused by the wind." 
Still less willl he say, "In the light of what 
I now see it appears possible, if not altogether 
probable, that the wind, and other conditions 
necessary to the existence of windmills, made 
the entire thing, tower and all." His thoughts 
refuse to take that course. It is at once sug- 
gested to his mind that some inventor foresaw 
the occasional gales, and by some arrangement 
of machinery, which at the distance of this 
observer can not be seen, gave the mill the 
degree of flexibility it is seen to possess. If 
his curiosity is sufficient to send him up the 
tower he will see an arrangement of slides, 
pulleys, and chains by which the capability of 
taking these modifications is secured. He so 
learns the details ; but his conviction that some 
provision for these changes had been made by 
an inventor was comj)lete before. 



82 CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCES. 

I do not say that the observer of nature 
has no more excuse than the observer of wind- 
mills for placing an extravagant estimate on 
the influence of blind force; but the illustra- 
tion may suggest a more rational theory. Ko 
arrangement of slides, pulleys, and chains can 
be discovered in the caterpillar ; but the capa- 
bility of taking another form exists in it in 
some invisible way as a part of the complex 
plan of its being. If it does not, the rays of 
the sun v\^ill be as likely to make wings some- 
where else as on the back of the caterpillar. 
If it does, then the caterpillar appears to be 
in the condition of the windmill which received 
from its inventor the capability of taking a 
modified form. If the plan of organization 
which reappears from generation to generation 
along some line of hereditary descent is capa- 
ble of receiving modifications, then we have 
here something more completely in the condi- 
tion of the windmill, which received from its 
inventor permission to take a modified form 
when changing conditions require it — a per- 
mission that is embodied in slides, pulleys, and 
chains which remain unused until changing 
conditions call them into action. Whether the 



STATEMENT OF FACTS. 33 

plans of organization which reappear from 
generation to generation along the various 
lines of hereditary descent are capable of re- 
ceiving modifications amounting to change of 
species or are not, we seek some source of the 
plans, ?ome adequate cause of their existence. 

It is said that matter may have existed and 
may have been in motion eternally ; that an 
endless train of action and reaction, cause and 
effect, may have resulted in what we now see. 

The casual collision of bodies, it is true, 
produces effects. Such collisions have been 
known to disorganize, but they have not been 
known to produce, organized structures. The 
results of ten thousand collisions, so far as 
we are able to see, would be fragments of 
unorganized matter. Assuming the eternity of 
matter and of motion, we shall have, in force, 
a source or cause of motion and of changes of 
form. We still look, as we did before, for a 
source of thoughts. 

It doubtless appears to many that doubts 
and differences of opinion in regard to the 
nature of the human mind, and in regard to 
its powers, destroy the intimations of God's 
existence. It is assumed that the mind is the 
H 



34 CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCES. 

brain, and that thoughts are secreted in the 
brain as the gastric juice is secreted in the 
stomach and bile in the liver. 

Let us look at the theory that nature is 
sufficient for the production of all that exists, 
in the light of this assumption. The brain is 
a collection of matter very highly organized. 
It secretes and sends forth beautiful and com- 
plex combinations of thought, some of which 
we see manifesting themselves in machinery. 
In those machines known as the bodies of an- 
imals and men thoughts still more beautiful 
and more complex manifest themselves. Where 
is the collection of matter, more highly organ- 
ized than the human brain, in which these 
transcendent thoughts w' ere secreted ? No such 
collection of organized matter is assumed in 
this theory. It is preferred to leave unused 
the suggestion furnished by those structures 
with whose origin we are acquainted. 

It is said that the mind has no power to 
create; that it can only combine what existed 
before; that in machinery simple mechanical 
powers, as the inclined plane and lever, ex- 
isted, and men have combined them to accom- 
plish certain ends. Let this, then, be the 



STATEMENT OF FACTS. 35 

limit of the mind^s power. One hundred years 
ago the agricultural machinery now in use did 
not exist. Within that time these combina- 
tions of simple mechanical powers have been 
caused by the mind of man. Ages ago organ- 
ized bodies did not exist on the earth, there 
being neither animal nor plant in existence. 
"We need a suggestion of something that has 
caused these combinations, in the same sense 
in which the other combinations have been 
caused by the mind of man. 

Leaving unused the suggestion furnished 
by those structures with whose. origin we are 
acquainted, and making no suggestion of an 
adequate source of the thoughts manifested in 
nature, gives to this theory an air of im- 
probability. 

3. In structures of human origin an unva- 
rying order of precedence is observed, as has 
been mentioned. The ideal precedes the real. 
The house is planned before it is built. In 
accepting the theory that nature is sufficient, 
we must conceive this order of precedence re- 
versed — that the house is built before the plan 
exists. According to this theory natural laws 
act entirely without regard to consequences — 



36 CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCES. 

without regard to the result in the end pro- 
duced. That is, under these laws materials 
move and arrange themselves so as in the end 
to manifest wonderful adaptations, though no 
impulse towards the accomplishment of these 
ends has been received directly or indirectly 
from any intelligent being. At the end of this 
process beautiful and complex plans not only 
for the first manifest themselves, so that they 
can be recognized by an observer, but it is at 
the end of this process that they first exist, 
not having been previously conceived. The 
necessity of conceiving the order of precedence 
reversed gives to this theory an air of im- 
probability ; and the more we consider the 
complete resemblance betw^een the thoughts 
manifested in nature and those manifested in 
art the more improbable this view of the origin 
of thoughts, or of adaptations, appears. 

4. According to this theory, at each mo- 
ment the state of things that exists is the eifect 
of that state of things which immediately pre- 
ceded it, and the cause of that which shall 
immediately follow it. Following the course 
supposed to have been pursued by nature, with 
a view to applying this theory, we meet at 



STATEMENT OF FACTS. 37 

various stages transitions in which the change 
is so great, and of such character, that we find 
in the preceding state of things no adequate 
explanation of what appears in that immedi- 
ately following. I have mentioned the shad- 
ing of doubt that lingers about several points 
in the development hypothesis; but there is a 
vast difference between the supposition that 
the plans of a Being capable of devising plans, 
and of superintending their execution, are un- 
folding in the course of nature, and the sup- 
position that matter, receiving no impulse at 
first and no guidance afterward from designing 
intelligence, has under the influence of blind 
force passed through the changes which have 
resulted in a beautiful and widespread display 
of adaptations. It is this view of development 
we are now applying. From a world without 
man to a world including man there is a great 
stride. Not only is the advance in organiza- 
tion great, but there appear in man peculiar- 
ities of mind, especially the religious faculty, 
of which the slightest germ can not be found 
in lower animals. The suggestion of missing 
links helps us but little, when we consider 
the great probability that those links would 



38 CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCES. 

uot now be missing if they had ever ex- 
isted. 

Gaing back along the course of nature, we 
reach a period in which neither animals nor 
plants existed. Between a world entirely with- 
out life and organization and a world including 
life and organization, however simple, there is 
a chasm at which nature seems to need the 
extended hand of some one able to help her 
across. If the view could be established that 
life and organization may result from unor- 
ganized matter, and a strong probability could 
be given to the idea that these simple organ- 
izations may develop into quadrupeds and men, 
the manifestations seen in the result of this 
process would still impress many minds, if not 
most minds, with the probability that some 
being capable of devising plans gave matter 
its tendency towards the accomplishment of 
this result; but the statement that unassisted 
nature is sufficient would be much more im- 
pressive if accompanied by a successful illus- 
tration. 

Let a mass of matter, selected by those 
who expect animals or plants to appear in 
such circumstances, be melted, or so heated as 



STATEMENT OF FACTS. 39 

to insure the destruction of all germs of life^ 
and placed while in this state in air previously 
so heated as to insure the destruction of any 
germs of life that may have existed in that. 
This mass of matter will then be in the con- 
dition of the earth when cooling from the 
melted state^ surrounded by an atmosphere 
destitute of life. If in this condition animals 
or plants should appear on this mass of matter, 
or in it, the statement that unassisted nature is 
sufficient to produce all that exists would be 
more impressive. Materials suspected of a 
tendency to produce living beings of very 
simple organization have received treatment 
somewhat like this ; and in such cases, so far 
as I have learned, organized structures, simple 
and complex, small and large, have failed to 
appear. 

We are acquainted w^ith many successful 
experiments in producing organized structures 
conducted in a somewhat different way. The 
house in which these chapters are written 
is a simple structure, and yet one requir- 
ing forethought. Some years ago the stones 
which now lie in its foundation began to 
move in some neighboring quarry, and con- 



40 CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCES. 

tinued to move till they reached this place. 
So the timber, boards, and shingles moved 
from some lumber-yard. Each portion of this 
material took its place in what is now a house. 
All this was in accordance with the wishes 
and plans, and in obedience to the wills, of cer- 
tain personal beings. If, when there existed 
neither animals nor plants, unorganized matter 
began so to move and arrange itself as to pro- 
duce them, our experience suggests that all 
this was probably in accordance with the 
wishes and plans, and in obedience to the 
will, of some personal Being; but especially, 
until unorganized matter is found to show 
some tendency towards not only producing 
organized structures, but endowing them with 
life and the power of reproduction, we must 
say that between a world entirely without life 
and organization and a world including life and 
organization, however simple, there is a chasm 
that seems impassable without the help of 
something more than blind force and unor- 
ganized matter. 

In view of the difficulties in the way of 
receiving the only rival theory, it still appears 
proper to assert ihat there are in nature — 



STATEMENT OF FACTS. 41 

both in the material world and in the struc- 
ture of the human mind — intimations of the 
existence of God, the Being from whom it is 
claimed a revelation has been received. 



42 CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCES. 



Chapter II. 

A STATEMENT OF GENERAL FACTS— Continued. 

IF it were not for Avhat appears to be a mis- 
apprehension in regard to the bearing on 
the truth of revelation of the theory that na- 
ture is sufficient for the production of all that 
exists, we should here pass immediately from 
this to another topic. But we wish first to 
notiee what appears to be a widespread mis- 
apprehension. It is thought that certain sci- 
entists have shown that there is no God; and, 
therefore, there can be no revelation. It is 
true, Colonel Ingersoll essays to demonstrate 
that there is no God, and that there can be 
none; but those cultivators of science who are 
sometimes quoted as having said something on 
this subject wish to be excused from partici- 
pating in '^ demonstrations " of this kind. 
There is a certain line of argument for the 
existence of God which does not appear to 
them conclusive, nor perhaps to have any 



STATEMENT OF FACTS. 43 

force. In stating this^ nothing is necessarily 
said in regard to any other evidence of God's 
existence. AVith the deist the argument ends 
here. His religion of nature stands or falls 
with the intimations of God's existence to be 
found in nature. AYith the Christian the case 
is quite diiferent. He presents these as col- 
lateral support to a doctrine which he also 
believes on other grounds. Though the light 
of nature is very properly appealed to, a stu- 
dious and thoughtful Christian believes that 
without it he has sufficient ground for the 
doctrine of a revelation ; and if God has made 
a revelation of his will he certainly exists. 

An advocate at the bar, after producing the 
most positive direct evidence to establish his 
case, may wish to present a statement of some 
ten considerations, all tending to confirm the 
evidence. In doing this he may meet with 
this difficulty : to one of the twelve jurors, on 
account of knowledge not in possession of the 
advocate, or on account of a difference of view 
in some way obtained, it does not appear that 
the consideration with which the statement 
opens has any bearing on the case. The force 
of a consideration which the advocate thought 



44 CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCES. 

important may here be lost. The same juror 
may, however, feel the full weight of the re- 
maining nine; and he may reach the conclu- 
sion that the advocate's view of the case is 
correct, though he continues to differ from him 
in regard to the one item of collateral support. 

A modern reader who thinks the statements 
made in the New Testament are truthful will 
not doubt the supernatural origin of Chris- 
tianity. The consideration of collateral sup- 
port, or circumstantial evidence, in this instance, 
has begun with intimations in nature of the 
existence of a Being who might have made 
this revelation. If, however, there Js any one 
who sees no such intimations, I do not hesitate 
to ask his attention to the remaining nine, or 
more, considerations believed to have a bear- 
ing on the case. 

Another point, however, believed to be 
worthy of consideration, is so nearly related 
to the one already stated that its value will be 
estimated according to the view we take of 
that. One who believes the adaptations seen 
in nature to be the result of design will be- 
lieve that the religious faculty was not given 
without some design touching the use that was 



STATEMENT OF FACTS. 45 

to be made of it. The religious faculty, with 
the impulse which gives it the character of an 
instinct, has been mentioned as an intimation 
of God's existence. It is here mentioned as 
an intimation of his purpose. This peculiarity 
has led all nations, and nearly all tribes, of 
men into the performance of religious rites, 
and the exercise of religious hopes and fears. 
So generally has this tendency shown itself 
that the discovery of a few savage tribes ex- 
hibiting no religious ideas has occasioned sur- 
prise. The same tendency shows itself in 
literature. The earliest literature of ancient 
nations consists of religious or semi-religious 
poems, and the most successful of modern 
poetry is permeated with the same sentiment. 
The grandest specimens of architecture, also, 
have been religious temples. This tendency 
is not an indication of mental weakness. It 
shows itself in force in Pascal, Newton, Bacon, 
and Locke, and reaches its vanishing point in 
certain poorly developed, ignorant tribes. It 
is frequently mentioned as a leading distinction 
between men and brutes — nothing below man 
being known to have any conception of a 
Creator, or to be capable of a religious senti- 



46 CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCES. 

ment. In this peculiarity of the mind we 
have an intimation of the Creator's design 
that men should be religious; not that men 
are compelled to be religious, but that in the 
exercise of religion men should find their 
normal and most healthful condition. It is 
true, religion may degenerate into superstition 
and idolatry, but so also does the abuse of 
other faculties result in evil. 

In viewing the constitution of the mind as 
an indication of the design of the Creator, we 
do not depart from the course commonly pur- 
sued in contemplating objects of nature. The 
belief has become very general, and very firmly 
fixed in the minds of men, that some of the 
23lanets of the solar system are inhabited. The 
belief seems to grow out of the fact that we 
appear to have before us the plan upon which 
they were made. They were made as if in- 
tended to be inhabited. The train of thought 
here pursued is like that pursued when we 
say the human mind was made as if intended 
for religious exercise. 

In material science important discoveries 
have been made by tracing indications of the 
Creator's design. In the formation of the 



STATEMENT OF FACTS. 47 

heart, tlie arteries, and the veins, and in the 
motion of the heart, Harvey thought he could 
see the purpose for which these organs were 
intended, and proceeded upon this hint to ex- 
periment by tying threads around the arteries 
and veins of animals. An artery so tied 
swelled out on the side of the thread nearest 
to the heart, and remained small at the other 
side; showing that the blood flowed from the 
heart in the artery. A similar experiment 
with a vein showed that the blood flowed to- 
ward the heart in the vein. These, with later 
experiments and observations, have established 
the doctrine of the circulation of the blood. 

I will not assert that we are able to dis- 
cern the use of all things seen in nature; but 
in contemplating a prominent feature, as the 
hand, we can not doubt the use for which it 
was given. The intention shown in placing 
the religious faculty in the mind of man is 
obvious, like the intention shown in the gift 
of the human hand. 

Take the instinct of an animal as an illus- 
tration of what is meant by the intention of 
the Creator to be discovered in the religious 
faculty. The young squirrel, untaught by the 



48 CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCES. 

rigors of any past Winter^ makes provision for 
the Winter that is approaching. The intention 
of the Creator displays itself as plainly in the 
instinct that impels the squirrel to carry the 
hoard of nuts into his nest as in the claws and 
teeth by which he is enabled to eat them. 
Notice the love of brutes for their young, and 
of human beings for their children. Without 
this provision there would be no possibility 
that children, at least, should ever reach ma- 
turity. "Without enumerating the various 
powers and tendencies of the mind, we find 
among them the ability to trace indications of 
God^s existence and goodness, capacity for 
reverence, adoration, and trust; in short, the 
religious faculty. Was this given at random, 
with no intention on the part of the Creator? 
The little survey we have made of material 
things, and of things denominated immaterial, 
leads to the belief that an intention of the 
Creator is shown in the gift of this faculty, 
and that that intention is realized in the relig- 
ious exercise and religious development of the 
race. But if God at the creation fitted men 
for religious exercise, we have in this another 
circumstance tending to diminish our surprise 



STATEMENT OF FACTS. 49 

at the announcement that he has by revelation 
furnished appropriate religious instruction. 

We are next to give a little thought to the 
religion claimed to have been revealed. Be- 
fore proceeding to Christianity proper, as 
presented in the New Testament, we find in 
relation to the Old Testament at least one of 
those general facts which arrest the attention, 
and invite a closer examination with reference 
to their bearing on the credibility of the New 
Testament account of Christ. 

It is a fact that can never cease to attract 
attention, and, upon the supposition that all 
religions are of human origin, it can not fail 
to excite surprise, that of all the nations of 
antiquity there w^as but one that persistently 
maintained the worship of one God — an intel- 
lect, or spirit, not to be represented by the 
material imagery of idolatry — who created the 
entire universe. The mass of mankind were 
then worshiping a multitude of supposed dei- 
ties, each with its peculiar characteristics ; 
some of them the special guardians of a city 
or nation, or of some particular interest, as 
Bacchus, the god of wine. A very few per- 
sons in other ancient countries appear to have 



60 CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCES. 

arrived at a conception of the idea of God 
much like that held among the Hebrews; but 
these few do not appear to have made the 
strenuous effort to teach and maintain the 
worship of such a being that was made among 
the Hebrews. Polytheism^ pantheism^ and 
idolatry have prevailed everywhere except in 
the Hebrew Scriptures, and where those Scrip- 
tures have been known. Mohammedans, as 
well as Christians and Jews, have had access 
to the Hebrew Scriptures ; but with the excep- 
tion of these, and of such persons as have 
associated Avith the adherents of one or an- 
other of these systems, all history and all 
observation of the present condition of man- 
kind show that, though men incline to be re- 
ligious, a clear conception of the idea of a 
God is not easily attained; while the best of 
the conceptions on this subject that have here 
and there appeared have had little practical 
effect w^ith the mass of the people, and have 
speedily disappeared beneath the surface of the 
muddy tide of superstitious idolatry. 

If a single teacher of religion among the 
Jews had clearly expressed this idea, and had 
shown, by his efforts to keep the mass of the 



STATEMENT OF FACTS. 51 

people above the worship of such gods as were 
worshiped in their vicinity, that he appreciated 
its importance, his case would have been an 
anomaly calling for some explanation. We 
should perhaps attribute his attainment to 
some fortunate array of circumstances, or some 
unusual adaptation to the study of this subject. 
But when we find that in this single nation, 
for the space of fifteen hundred years, a suc- 
cession of men came forward to maintain 
this idea, and to reclaim the people from 
idolatry, it becomes difficult to apply this 
explanation. 

If we resort to some national trait, some 
peculiar adaptation to the study of theology 
developing itself among the Jewish people, 
then not only the great superiority of the re- 
ligion of the Old Testament over other relig- 
ions of antiquity, but also the grievous tend- 
ency of the Jews to backslide and fall into 
idolatry, leads us to doubt whether this expla- 
nation is sufficient. ^^ Elevated positions are 
usually pointed," and the mass of the Jewish 
people frequently slid down from the elevation 
to which they were raised, religiously, above 
surrounding nations, adopting their idolatry, 



52 CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCES. 

to be recalled time after time by a long line 
of prophets. 

The detail of appliances by which this 
course of training was carried on, and its im- 
portance to the introduction of Christianity, 
are left to other chapters. We are here fol- 
loAving the course proposed in the first chapter, 
considering first certain general facts which 
invite a closer investigation of the . truth of 
Christianity. In taking this general view of 
this topic, it will be appropriate to consider 
the length of time during which the Jewish 
people were undergoing a process of education 
and training by prophets and other religious 
teachers; during which a race of people in- 
clined to idolatry, at first the slaves of idola- 
ters, and afterward greatly influenced by the 
idolatry of surrounding nations, were weaned 
from their idolatrous inclination, so as to be- 
come at last constant worshipers of Jehovah. 

From Moses, in w^hose time the Hebrews 
became a nation, to Christ, is a period of about 
fifteen hundred years. This is about fifteen 
times the number of years the United States 
has been an independent nation; equal to 
nearly four times the period elapsed since 



STATEMENT OF FACTS. 53 

Columbus discovered America, or a period 
some three hundred years greater than that 
during which the English language has been 
spoken. 

The worship of some, at least, of the gods 
of surrounding nations, as that of Baal-Peor 
and of Ashtoreth, was attended with licentious 
rites, while the worship of Jehovah required 
self-denial and purity. When we bear in mind 
that the adage, "A down-hill road is easily 
traveled," is specially applicable to a race of 
people but partially civilized, we can easily 
believe that the struggle to keep the people 
above idolatry was arduous, as well as long- 
continued. According to the history we have 
on the subject, this labor was conducted fre- 
quently at the peril of the lives of those who 
undertook to perform it. It was in view of 
this period that Jesus declared that Jerusalem 
had stoned the prophets and killed them that 
were sent unto her. The fact that this in- 
struction and training were continued so long, 
in the midst of such surroundings, resulting 
at last in the establishment of a nation of 
worshipers of the true God, is at least a very 
noticeable fact to be seen standing alone with- 



54 CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCES. 

out a parallel in history; and it may perhaps 
be found to be part of a scheme which extends 
to still higher developments in religion. 

The admitted pre-eminence of Christianity 
may be placed in the catalogue of facts that 
should have their influence on the mind while 
studying the question of its origin. The coarser 
style of attack upon Christianity having been 
dropped by most writers on this subject^ we 
find believers and unbelievers in revelation 
expressing their admiration for the life and 
teachings of Christ in nearly the same strains. 
Strauss and Eenan and Parker have spoken 
of Jesus in terms of eloquent eulogy. The 
Toledo Index says, " Jesus is the greatest of 
the purely spiritual teachers of the past." 
Colonel Higginson says, ^^The leadership of 
Christ is the noblest of all leaderships; but I 
have rejected all leaders." I Avill introduce 
some extracts from an essay by Professor 
Everett, of Harvard College, read before the 
Boston Kadical Club, as reported in the New 
York Tribune: 

" Christ is present to the nineteenth cent- 
ury afc once as a problem and as a power. 
No questions have stirred more deeply the 



STATEMENT OF FACTS. 55 

heart of the age than those which have to do 
with his person and his office. If the age, in 
any fundamental forms of its thought, seems 
to stand in opposition to Christ, this apparent 
opposition is only the antithesis of elements 
which belong together. Christ's work was of 
a kind which could not be done all at once. 
All that it was possible for any soul to do at 
one epoch he did. He infused into the world 
a spirit of love and faith and consecration, the 
enthusiasm for humanity. Then he left his 
trust in the world, to be as the little leaven 
which by and by leaveneth the whole lump. 
His external history contains elements opposed 
to the spirit of this age. The very idea of a 
miracle is in opposition to the fundamental 
axioms of present thought. The Avriters who 
best represent this thought affirm with Strauss 
that the time is past when a miracle can be 
believed. But the miraculous is inextricably 
intertwined with the history of Christ. We 
have the testimony of Paul, one of the grand- 
est souls that ever lived, to the most important 
of the miracles of Jesus; namely, his mani- 
festation of himself to his disciples after his 
death. But if we can not eliminate the mi- 



56 CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCES. 

raculous from tlie history of Christ, neither 
can we eliminate from the spirit of the age 
that element which finds it hard to accept a 
miracle. The one complements the other; for 
it is in the face of this determined incredulity 
that a miracle is first seen to be really a mir- 
acle. To the savage, one thing is as strange 
as another; every thing is a miracle, or noth- 
ing is. From the background of absolute laAv, 
which this age has placed behind it, a miracle 
stands forth, demanding, yet defying, credence. 
It defies known law, yet proves the existence 
of unknown law, stretching far beyond our 
ken. The spirit of the age needs the miracu- 
lous to check its arrogance, to teach it that, 
much as it has attained, unknown worlds lie 
beyond. Within these external facts of Christ's 
history abides the vitalizing spirit of his teach- 
ings. And the leaven has not lost its power. 
^' Christ was not a truth seeker. He was 
true, indeed; but the life was more to him 
than the truth ; to be was more than to know. 
He spoke with authority ; and to-day he still 
speaks with authority to an age Avhich is dis- 
posed to reject all authority. To him truth 
came by spiritual intuition ; to this age it 



STATEMENT OF FACTS. 57 

comes by scientific scrutiny. As the voices 
of the natural world come to our ears without 
our listening to them, so the voice of God 
came to the ears of Christ Avithout his listen- 
ing for it. And this was the ground of the 
authority with w^hich he spoke. He transmit- 
ted the word of God which he heard. 

" The truth taught by Jesus and the truth 
taught by the age need each other, moreover. 
Christ taught that God is love ; this has to be 
supplemented by the truth that God is law, 
and this latter truth is the oifering which the 
spirit of the age brings to Christ. Jesus bids 
us love our neighbor ; the steam and the light- 
ning of this age bring our neighbor at the 
ends of the earth near to us, and make it 
practicable for us to love him. But if the 
truth of Jesus needs the age, still more does 
the age need his truth. Hard and dry, in- 
deed, would be the mechanism of the times, 
the laws of science, the maxims of political 
economy, without the interpenetrating truth 
of Christ." 

" In response to Mr. Sargent's call for a 
discussion, Mr. Alcott was the first speaker. 
He said that no question had ever been so 



58 CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCES. 

absolutely in the air as this, What think ye 
of Christ? How far are the best men and 
women prepared to answer, even to them- 
selves, this question ? All can say, ^ I feel 
my heart instructs me, but when I appeal to 
reason I am confused.' It is no accusation 
of our intelligence that we have not yet come 
to a clear comprehension of Christ. Had we 
been able to do so, he would have ceased to 
be the Christ of our desires. It is because 
he is too deep for us that he -answers to our 
needs. Our faith in him is a faith of the 
heart.'' 

I will remark in regard to the opinion of 
Strauss concerning miracles, alluded to in these 
quotations, that, at about the time Strauss was 
writing his Life of Christ, Michael Faraday, to 
whom we are indebted for our knowledge of 
certain important laws of electricity and chem- 
istry, was in the practice of preaching Chris- 
tianity from time to time to the religious 
society of which he was a member. And it 
was not far from the same time that the emi- 
nent mathematician and scientist. Professor 
Babbage, was writing his Bridgewater Trea- 
tise, a part of which is a defense of miracles. 



STATEMENT OF FACTS. 59 

The statement of Strauss in regard to the pos- 
sibility of believing a miracle should^ there- 
fore, be understood as being in part rhetorical. 

Dr. Bartol, a member of the same Radical 
Club, has published a book called ^^ Radical 
Problems.^^ From a newspaper article on this 
book, by James Freeman Clarke, I will select 
one or two short passages. 

^' His reverence for Christ and Christianity 
appears in such expressions as these : ^ But 
Jesus was right, as he always is — the Spirit is 
the Comforter.' Of one who said, ^ I put my- 
self squarely outside of Christianity,' he re- 
marks, ^ That, w^ere it psychologically possible, 
were to be so far outside of God.' Of Jesus 
he says : ' The idea he stands for is the divine 
humanity.' ^ He is God-man, and I hold it as 
unjust as ungrateful to dispute his claim.' To 
be sure. Dr. Bartol regards all men as made to 
come ultimately to the same position of one- 
ness with God, reading literally the prayer of 
Christ that they may be one as we are one. 

" He says that the words of Christ, ^ I am 
the resurrection and the life,' are the balm of 
every burial service from the Charles to the 
Rhone. So that, on the whole, in regard to 



60 CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCES. 

the authority of Jesus, our writer inclines to 
that class of sons who say that they will not 
go to work when their father tells them, for 
fear of compromising their independence ; but 
afterward go to work harder than those who 
professed a louder obedience. He refuses to 
call Christ Lord; but sits at his feet, hears 
his truth, and says, ^ Thou hast the words of 
eternal life/^^ 

The fact that Jesus is so conspicuous a 
figure, so bright that those who reject his au- 
thority are still constrained to hover about 
him, gaze at him, make him the theme of 
their discussions — the fact that men who are 
religiously inclined, but who love to roam with 
sufficient freedom to take Buddha, Mohammed, 
and Confucius in the sw^eep of their studies, 
return hungry to Jesus, sit down among his 
hearers, and feast upon the words that fall 
from his lips — is worthy to be placed in the 
list of facts through which we approach the 
study of the evidences of Christianity. 

ISTor is the feeling shown in these quota- 
tions entirely diiferent from that entertained 
by the mass of the people in their thoughtful 
moments. In rebuking the unchristian and 



STATEMENT OF FACTS. 61 

inhuman treatment of Chinese immigrants the 
New York Tribune said, " In this country we 
are all Christians after some manner/^ and 
urged a course of conduct consistent with 
such views. 

The objections still urged occasionally 
against the teachings of Christ are for the 
most part probably due to some misapprehen- 
sion of the thought presented; owing in some 
cases, perhaps, to inaccurate translations, in 
some to gradual change in the use of words in 
the language into which the New Testament is 
translated, as the word thought, in the expres- 
sion, "take no thought for the morrow,'^ in- 
tended to lead us to cast off anxiety for the 
future, for " sufficient unto the day is the evil 
thereof;'^ but sometimes understood as a pro- 
hibition against forecasting our business. Mis- 
apprehension may result from neglecting the 
circumstances in which a passage was uttered, 
the temperament and style of thought of the 
people addressed, and the style of expression 
in common use at the time and place. For 
instance, the passage, " Whosoever shall smite 
thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other 
also,'' is what grammarians term hyperbole. 



62 CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCES. 

It is a strong injunction to meek, patient for- 
bearance, but was not to be understood in its 
full, literal sense, and was not so illustrated in 
the experience of Jesus under injury. It may 
be remarked that language is used in a simi- 
lar way in the New Testament in not a few 
other instances. 

The adaptation of Christianity to the wants 
of men is, perhaps, one of the facts that call 
forth appreciative remarks like those I have 
quoted. I will notice it a little farther. It 
may be observed that Christianity is fitted to 
the soul somewhat as our garments are fitted 
to the outward form, or as a railroad car is 
fitted to the track on which it runs. I will 
only point out one feature of this adaptation. 
Many men are indifferent in their feelings to- 
wards God, believing that God is indifferent 
towards them, that he has left them in or- 
phanage, that he has no care for them. Others 
are chafed by the situation in which God has 
placed them, and beat against their surround- 
ings as a bird beats its wings against the bars 
of the cage in which it is confined. If men 
are to be happy, they need to feel themselves 
in harmony with God. They can not hope to 



STATEMENT OF FACTS. 63 

pass beyond his realm. "Thou shalt love the 
Lord thy God/^ is not only God's highest re- 
quirement, but it is a statement of our greatest 
need. Is not Christianity adapted to our wants 
at this point? An apostle answers, "We love 
Him because he hath first loved us." Those 
who contemplate the life, teachings, and death 
of Christ, believing that in these we have a 
manifestation of God's character and of his love 
to men, and who yield themselves obediently to 
the influence of the light so gained, will be 
gently led into the position they need to oc- 
cupy, in harmony with their Maker. The 
love of God has been compared to the force 
of gravity, holding intelligent beings in their 
appropriate spheres about their Creator as 
planets are held in their harmonious orbits 
around the sun.* 

The danger of unbelief is pointed out in 
the .statement quoted by Jesus, " Man shall 
not live by bread alone, but by every word 
that proceedeth out of the mouth of God." 
There is an intimation here that there are in 
our natures certain high capabilities that are 



* Philosophy of the Plan of Salvation. 



64 CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCES. 

liable to starve if we fail to take such nourish- 
ment as may be within our reach. 

If we turn from the character of Chris- 
tianity to consider the improvements in society 
that have resulted from its establishment, we 
are still in the midst of facts that should in- 
cline us to a respectful consideration of the 
claim it puts forth concerning its origin. But 
at the threshold of this inquiry we pause a 
moment in astonishment at the fact that a 
young man of a small town in Galilee, without 
money, without political power, who committed 
nothing that we know of to writing, and who 
died at about thirty-three years of age, is ever 
heard of at this age, and in this part of the 
world. Our astonishment is greater at the fact 
that nearly every child in every city, village, 
and school-district in the most enlightened 
parts of the world is taught to speak his name 
with reverence. It is still greater at the fact 
that the life of this young Jewish peasant, or 
mechanic, should be the great event, tran- 
scending every other event in its influence on 
the progress of civilization. 

There may, at times, be some misunder- 
standing as to the nature of the claim we set 



STATEMENT OF FACTS. 65 

up for Christianity. It is not that the man 
who invents a steamboat or a printing-press 
must necessarily be a Christian. But if we 
look at the races of men in the low condition 
in which Christianity usually reaches them, 
we shall see that they are not in a condition 
either to invent or to use inventions of great 
importance. Dr. Tayler Lewis asks the Anglo- 
Saxons, who sometimes boast a little, to "look 
to the hole of the pit whence they were 
digged. ^^ When religious and moral ideas 
come to be appreciated, and an orderly style 
of living is established, and something of gen- 
eral thrift begins to permeate society, then the 
invention and use of machinery comes to be 
possible. Christianity displays an affinity for 
schemes of education and benevolence designed 
to improve or ameliorate the condition of men, 
co-operating with them, and lending its influ- 
ence to build them up. Even where benevo- 
lent institutions are built up with ostentation, 
and with selfish motives, Christianity may 
claim the credit of having made humanity 
popular. 

Something of the theology and more of the 
humanity of Jesus have found their way into 



6Q CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCES. 

general literature. In this field there is a vast 
army of writers who might adopt the language 
of the Tribune, ^' We are all Christians after 
some manner." Christians are sensitive when 
they meet passages written in an unfriendly 
spirit ; but I think a calm examination of the 
literature of the present day would show that 
ten words are written to inculcate humane sen- 
timents, derived directly or indirectly from 
Christ, to one that is written against his au- 
thority. Under the influence of these senti- 
ments, reaching society through various chan- 
nels, "instead of the thorn" has "come up the 
fir-tree, and instead of the briar" has "come 
up the myrtle-tree;" so that whatever there is 
in material science and mechanical invention to 
relieve men from toil and give leisure for per- 
sonal improvement, what9ver in benevolent in- 
stitutions to relieve the unfortunate, whatever 
is best in moral elevation and greatest in 
intellectual achievement, is seen to be dissem- 
inating itself chiefly from Christendom towards 
the heathen, and not coming from heathen na- 
tions towards iw. Among the oflerings of 
Christendom to the heathen Avorld is the tel- 
egraph, which Colonel Ingersoll pictures as the 



STATEMENT OF FACTS. 67 

representative of implements made " for the 
use of man." * 

Swords still gleam and bayonets still glitter, 
but the spirit of the Prince of Peace, mani- 
festing itself in sanitary commissions and 
Christian commissions, has ameliorated the 
battle-field ; and men and \yomen infused with 
the same spirit urge the authorities to appeal 
to arbitration instead of the sword in the set- 
tlement of national disputes. 

Those who think Christians are inclined to 
overestimate the influence of Christianity in 
bringing about an improved state of society 
may take another view of the relation of the 
one to the other, and still find facts tending to 
confirm the claim Christianity puts forth in 
regard to its origin. The adaptation of Chris- 
tianity to the religious wants of men is such 
that at its first propagation this fact, together 
w^ith the evidence of its truth, speedily over- 
threw the established religions of Greece and 
Rome ; and this was not done by outward 
force of armies or of political power, but as 
the leaven leavens the whole lump. 



♦Preface to "The Gods, and Other Lectures. 



68 CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCES. 

Since that time society has greatly changed ; 
and yet we find the boundaries of Christendom 
and the boundaries of the highest civilization 
nearly coinciding ; and intelligent men, of dif- 
ferent races, and different beliefs in regard to 
the origin of Christianity, are proclaiming in 
language of the highest enthusiasm its adapta- 
tion to the religious wants of man. Was not 
the framing of a religion so adapted to the 
wants of men in different ages, in different 
conditions of civilization, and of different races, 
as to overthrow all other religions so far as ifc 
has been spread — so adapted that no one who 
has once fully received Christianity will after- 
wards adoj)t any of the other religions in the 
world — a task too great for human achieve- 
ment? Certainly it was a task too great for 
the philosophers of Greece, whose attention 
was much given to the study of religion, but 
whose religions have fallen into oblivion. 

But if it was a human achievement, by what 
men was it achieved? The age of Augustus 
was one of the brightest in ancient history. 
The age of Elizabeth has by comparison been 
called the Augustan age of English literature. 
If we were not familiar with the facts, we 



STATEMENT OF FACTS. 69 

mighty therefore, ask whether a religion capa- 
ble of perpetuating itself originated among 
the philosophers of Athens or the learned men 
of Rome. It did not, however, originate with 
either of these, but among some fishermen 
along the shore of Lake Tiberias, who reported 
it from the mouth of a carpenter of that re- 
gion. We are reminded of the language of 
Jesus, " I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven 
and earth, that thou hast hid these things from 
the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them 
unto babes.'^ Or of that of Paul, " We have 
this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excel- 
lency of the power may be of God, and not 
of us.'^ To the Corinthians he wrote : '^ Ye 
see your calling, brethren; not many wise 
men, not many mighty, not many noble are 
called. God hath chosen the weak things of 
this world to confound the mighty; yea, and 
things that are not to bring to naught things 
that are.'^ 

Some who grow tired of the sound of eu- 
logy bestowed on Christianity will ask, ^^Are 
there not men in the Church w^ho are dodging 
away from their creditors, and using the tricks 
of trade ?'^ To which I answer. Yes; there 



70 CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCES. 

appear to be dishonest men in all branches of 
the Christian Church ; but the bearing of this 
and kindred weaknesses upon the argument in 
regard to revelation appears to me to have been 
misapprehended. The religion of the Bible is, 
in one view of it, a collection of precepts that 
are useful to those who practice them, or who 
make a sincere effort to practice them, whether 
they are in the Church or out; and that are 
of no value to those who do not make this 
effort, whether in the Church or out. 

In the Old Testament we have the history 
of a people but partially enlightened, whose 
imperfections in practice should be viewed 
with forbearance. In the early Christian 
Church, when the profession of Christianity 
was made at the hazard of life, we should ex- 
pect to find purity and sincere earnestness: 
and this is the report history has brought 
down from that period. From the third cent- 
ury to the present time designing men have 
at times attached themselves to the Church 
from selfish or dishonest motives. It would 
be proper to look into the New Testament to 
see whether that has furnished aid and comfort 
to such men in dishonesty, or whether the im- 



STATEMENT OF FACTS. 71 

pnlse is from some other source. In these cases 
Christianity is misrepresented ; but to the casual 
observer it appears in an unfavorable light. 

A similar remark may be made in regard 
to persecutions which have occurred among 
Christians. Some sanction or encouragement 
for them should be found in the Xew Testa- 
ment before we permit ourselves to receive 
from those persecutions a prejudice against 
Christianity. As an effort has been made, by 
means of pictorial representations of persecu- 
tions done ^^ for the love of God/' to produce 
an aversion towards all religions, including 
the Christian religion, it will be proper to 
spend a moment in pointing out the fact that, 
so far as Christianity is concerned, this is 
merely a vigorous stroke of one who beats 
the air.* 

It is true, the disciples of Christ were 
taught to expect persecution; but instructions 
to inflict it when circumstances should permit 
would have been quite a different matter. 
Such expressions as, " Behold I send you forth 
as sheep in the midst of wolves/' and the 

* Preface to IngersolTs "The Gods, and Other 
Lectures." 



72 CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCES. 

words spoken to Peter when lie proposed to 
defend the Master with a sword, " Put up 
again thy sword into his place : for all they 
that take the SAVord shall perish with the 
sword/^ some doubtless will believe to have 
been prompted by the caution Avhich existing 
circumstances required, though the words, " all 
they that take the sword/^ would seem to have 
been intended for disciples in all ages. AVe 
have, however, special illustrations of the 
manner in which Jesus expected the true 
kingdom of heaven to advance, from which 
all violence seems to be excluded. He illus- 
trates by the process of vegetable growth, in 
which particle by particle silently and quietly 
takes its place, till the plant, when grown to 
maturity, shelters the birds of the air. "An- 
other parable spake he unto them: The king- 
dom of heaven is like unto leaven, which a 
woman took and hid in three measures of meal 
till the whole was leavened." Quietly it ex- 
tends from particle to particle till every por- 
tion has felt its influence. 

A certain passage has been quoted as if it 
were not in keeping with these illustrations : 
"Think not that 1 am come to send peace on 



STATEMENT OF FACTS. 73 

earth : I came not to send peace, but a sword. 
For I am come to set a man at variance 
against his father, and the daughter against 
her mother, and the daughter-in-law against 
her mother-in-law. And a man's foes shall 
be they of his own household.'^ 

This is part of a discourse of considerable 
length, the drift of which can not be mis- 
taken ; and there is a statement of the circum- 
stances in which the discourse was given. The 
discourse and circumstances leave no excuse 
for the insinuation that here is a sanction to 
persecution. 

The occasion of this address was the send- 
ing out of the apostles to preach and to pro- 
claim that the kingdom of heaven was at 
hand. They were sent as an act of compas- 
sion towards the multitudes,' because they 
fainted, and Avere scattered abroad as sheep 
having no shepherd. This work was hazard- 
ous to the apostles who were so sent forth. 
The passage before quoted, " Behold, I send 
you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves,'' is 
part of this discourse. From this he proceeds 
to show the disciples that they could not ex- 
pect to escape persecution ; that they should 



71 CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCES. 

certainly be treated as he had been treated; 
but he exhorts them not to fear those who can 
kill only the body. There is a constantly re- 
newed strife between right and wrong; and 
the introduction of the Gospel^ like other 
reforms, awoke discords which separated even 
the members of a family. Jesus does not 
teach his disciples that in such an emergency 
they should sell their lives as dearly as they 
could ; nor that it would be better to take the 
lives of others than to lose their own ; but he 
teaches them that it would be better to lose 
their lives than to desert the cause in which 
they had enlisted, saying, " He that loseth his 
life for my sake shall find it." 

About seven hundred years before this, 
Isaiah looked forward to the coming of a 
Messiah who should be called the Prince of 
Peace, who should give his influence to the 
introduction of a state of society in which 
swords should be beaten into plowshares and 
spears into pruning-hooks, and men should not 
hurt nor destroy. We may be several hun- 
dreds of years, perhaps some thousands of 
years, from the finest of the scenes painted on 
the canvas which Isaiah passes before us ; but 



STATEMENT OF FACTS. 75 

there is no recorded word of Jesus, who 
claimed to be the Messiah, that is not in har- 
mony with the sentiments Isaiah expected the 
Messiah to teach. There can be no insinua- 
tion more ungrounded, or more ungrateful, 
than that which uses persecution as a means 
of prejudicing men against Jesus. 

The general facts discussed in these two 
opening chapters, from the intimations we 
have in nature of the existence of God to the 
character and influence of Christianity, are 
thought to be such as invite a closer examina- 
tion of the claims of Christianity. They are 
also here presented as circumstantial evidences 
tending to confirm the statements made by the 
New Testament writers in regard to Jesus. 



76 CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCES. 



Chapter III. 

THE PURPOSE OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 

T)EFOE;E attempting to draiv arguments 
-*-^ from special features, or parts, of the Old 
Testament, it will be well for us to consider 
the general purpose of that part of the Bible. 
The tenacity with which the nations of an- 
tiquity clung to idolatry, and the difficulties 
met in the effort to uproot it and remove it 
from a small tract of country, are astonishing 
to one who looks back upon the Old Testa- 
ment history from the stand-point of a Chris- 
tian civilization; and yet certain writers, who 
have turned their attention to the early relig- 
ious condition of man, are dipping their j)ens 
into a blacker ink, and giving to their picture 
of that early period a still darker shading; 
for while the Old Testament gives us a glimpse 
of a patriarchal age, in which men worshiped 
God in comparative simplicity, with but few, 
if any, of the peculiar rites of idolatry, these 



PURPOSE OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 77 

writers believe barbarism to have been primi- 
tive and universal. Herbert Spencer, taking 
this view, is quoted as having said, in a late 
book, that ^Hhe Lord to whom Abraham gave 
his allegiance was a superior chieftain, not the 
Almighty God.'' 

Whether the work of which we have the 
minutes in the Old Testament is looked upon 
as the establishment of the worship of the true 
God in the midst of primitive and universal 
barbarism and idolatry, or as the re-establish- 
ment and perpetuation of that worship where 
it had well-nigh disappeared, the scheme for 
the accomplishment of this end, as well as the 
end itself, is strangely different from any thing 
to be found elsewhere in the world's history; 
and the studies of writers of the class referred 
to, cause the institutions of the Old Testament 
to stand out in higher relief. Readers of the 
Bible will not doubt that the tendency to super- 
stition, idolatry, and debasing modes of worship 
was as strong as these wTiters believe it to have 
been. Wherever the ancient world is looked 
in upon, this tendency appears as a murky cur- 
rent of sufficient force to bear down and carry 
before it all ordinary barriers. 



78 CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCES. 

These were the circumstances in which the 
work of establishing an intelligent worship of 
God was begun. 

The first step in the progress of this work, 
as we see it in the Bible, was the establish- 
ment of the idea of the unity of God, and the 
separation of his worship from idolatry.- The 
second step was taken when a more complete 
knowledge of the character of God, and of his 
thoughts and feelings towards men,, was im- 
parted in the life, teachings, and death of 
Christ. 

Abraham, the father of the race which was 
afterward trained under the institutions of the 
Old Testament to the worship of Jehovah, was, 
according to the only information we have con- 
cerning him, called from heathendom, for the 
purpose of initiating that work, about nineteen 
hundred years before Christ. The descendants 
of Abraham, with such others as had attached 
themselves to these, were formed into a nation 
under Moses about fifteen hundred years before 
Christ. 

On opening the Bible we meet with certain 
writings, the first five books of the Old Testa- 
ment, attributed in some sense to Moses, as 



PURPOSE OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 79 

their writer or compiler, and which were per- 
haps in part written and in part compiled by 
him. The reader of these books, especially of 
the farewell addresses in the book of Deuter- 
onomy, w^hether he recognizes a superhuman 
intervention and supervision in this work or 
not, will not fail to perceive that Moses is 
intent above all things upon making the wor- 
ship of Jehovah, with the rejection of idolatry, 
witchcraft, and the related superstitions, the 
chief corner-stone of .the nation he is founding. 

Having observed the intensity of this feel- 
ing, we naturally seek through it to understand 
the institutions and the writings of Moses; 
especially do we inquire w^hether these tended 
to the accomplishment of the end so much 
desired. 

A portion of these writings consists of the 
laws of the nation, and the ritual of the He- 
brew worship. A portion has the character of 
a diary, or record of passing events during the 
leadership of Moses. Special reference is per- 
haps had to these portions in what is said in 
the thirty-first chapter of Deuteronomy, though 
the law included all the writings of Moses. 
"And it came to pass, when Moses had made 



80 CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCES. 

an end of writing the words of this law in a 
book, until they were finished, that Moses 
commanded the Levites, w^hich bare the ark 
of the covenant of the Lord, saying, Take this 
book of the law and put it in the side of the 
ark of the covenant of the Lord your God, 
that it may be there for a witness against thee. 
For I know thy rebellion, and thy stiif neck : 
behold, while I am yet alive w^ith you this 
day, ye have been rebellious against the Lord; 
and how much more after my death !" 

If truthful, these writings were a record of 
such events as Avould show the extreme folly 
of rebellion against the Lord and alliance with 
idolatry. The words quoted also show that pre- 
paring certain writings for immediate use, or 
for use during the struggle between monothe- 
ism and idolatry, was the thought in the mind 
of Moses, rather than that of making a book 
for late generations and distant people. A 
portion of these writings is historical; giving 
a connected account of the children of Abra- 
ham down to the time of Moses. Advantage 
is here taken of the tendency to follow in the 
footsteps of fathers and forefathers which is 
found in every nation, by showing that the 



PURPOSE OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 81 

Lord to whom the people were instructed to 
give their allegiance had been the God of 
Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob. A portion 
is -introductory to this history, and stretches 
back to the creation. Did this introductory 
portion further the work of training the He- 
brew people to the worship of Jehovah, or 
guard them against any form of idolatry? 
Perhaps no portion of the writings of Moses 
was more efficient in furthering this work. 
Whether ^^the Lord to whom Abraham gave 
his allegiance " was a superior chieftain, or was 
not, it is true that unnumbered multitudes of 
that period and of later periods did give them- 
selves to the worship of departed heroes. 
Nothing could have been better devised than 
was this introductory portion of the writings 
of Moses, to check among the Hebrews the 
hero-worship to which other nations were 
given. Here is a list of all the prominent 
characters among the ancestors of that people 
back to the creation. Among them no one is 
presented as an object of worship; while the 
jealous God who leads the Israelites forbids 
that the worship due to himself should be 
divided with inferior deities. That no hero, 
6 



82 CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCES. 

chieftain, or man, however superior, living or 
dead, is the proper object of worship, and that 
the Maker of all things, and Judge of all men, 
is the proper object, became palpably evident 
to one so instructed. 

There are many questions of interest clus- 
tering about the Mosaic account of the creation 
upon which we can not now enter; but it will 
be according to the plan of this chapter to ask 
why Moses wrote on the creation with such 
light as he had, whether it is thought to have 
been much or little. The account of the crea- 
tion, with the other writings of Moses, was 
placed in the side of the ark, an ornamented 
chest borne by the Levites when the camp 
advanced. These writings were read to the 
people at stated times, and became the nucleus 
of a Hebrew literature. The Mosaic account 
of the creation in this way was used as part 
of the educating appliances by which a people 
was trained. In this primary use its purpose 
was not so much to teach the order of crea- 
tion, as to give to the race undergoing this 
religious training as clear an idea as possible 
of the Being they were instructed to worship, 
and of his relation to nature and to man. 



PURPOSE OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 83 

There is a tendency to worship created ob- 
jects instead of the Creator — something visi- 
ble, if not tangible, instead of the invisible 
God. There are those at the present time who 
warn us against limiting the powers of nature, 
and teach that, though there is no God, mere 
matter will probably give us a future state. 
Whether there is here an adoration of nature • 
amounting to idolatry I do not know; but the 
worship of objects of nature, especially of the 
sun, moon, and stars, the whole host of heaven, 
has been one of the most frequent forms of 
idolatry. Through intercourse with neighbor- 
ing nations this type of idolatry frequently 
sprang up in Judah and Israel, groves being 
planted on high places for its accommodation. 
It is evident that Moses was apprehensive that 
this would be the case, as is shown by such 
remarks as: ^^Take heed . . . lest thou 
lift up thine eyes unto heaven, and when thou 
seest the sun, and the moon, and the stars, 
even all the host of heaven, shouldst be driven 
to worship them and serve them." For a peo- 
ple concerning whom Moses felt this appre- 
hension he could not have provided a better 
course of instruction than the account of the 



84 CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCES. 

creation^ showing that the Being they were 
taught to worship is superior to all these 
shining hosts — the Maker of them all. 

As it was the purpose of the institutions 
of Moses to train a people to the worship of 
the true God and the rejection of idolatry, and 
not to furnish a model civil government, the 
civil code of the Jews will be considered 
only incidentally, and with reference to ob- 
jections made to it. While the process of 
religious training was in progress it was nec- 
essary that some provision be made for the 
civil government of the people. It has, I 
think, been established by experience that, in 
matters of civil government, laws far in ad- 
vance of the people to be governed are not 
profitable, and will not be enforced. It has 
been found necessary at the present day that 
a laborious process of educating the people 
should precede the enactment of just laws 
in relation to the sale of intoxicating liquors. 
The civil code of Moses is a collection of laws 
designed for the government of an uncivilized 
people, surrounded by tribes among whom 
cruel and barbarous customs were the rule, 
and not the exception. In a few instances the 



PURPOSE OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 85 

laws of Moses appear to be a compromise be- 
tween strict justice and the sentiments of the 
peo]3le. So the civil code of Moses was viewed 
by Christ, and so it may properly be viewed 
by Christians. In the days of Malachi cer- 
tain abuses had grown up under the divorce 
law of Moses, which the prophet rebukes. 
Wives were dealt with treacherously and cru- 
elly, being put away for unimportant causes. 
At the time of Christ there appears to have 
been a difference of opinion, and certain Phar- 
isees asked, " Is it lawful for a man to put 
away his wife for every cause ?'^ He answered 
in the negative. " They say unto him, Why 
did Moses then command to give a writing of 
divorcement, and put her away? He saith 
unto them, Moses, because of the hardness of 
your hearts, suffered you to put away your 
waives : but from the beginning it was not so.^^ 
Here it appears that the civil code of Moses is 
looked upon as a collection of temporary pro- 
visions adapted to the people for whom they 
were made, provisions which permitted the 
continuance of some existing evils, while they 
acted as checks to greater evils. 

Taking up again the trace of the great 



8Q CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCES. 

scheme which runs through the writings and 
the institutions of Moses, we find that a con- 
siderable and very emphatic portion of the 
Decalogue consists of prohibitions against 
idolatry. 

We are next to consider the complex sys- 
tem of religious ceremonies connected at first 
with the tabernacle, and afterwards transferred 
to the temple, which was merely a more per- 
manent building for the perpetuation of the 
same system of worship. To understand the 
part taken by the ceremonial law in training 
and educating the Jews, we must consider the 
condition the people were in when the law 
was given, and also their surroundings. They 
were not only ignorant and in a semi-barbar- 
ous condition, but during their long stay in 
Egypt they had largely adopted the religion 
of Egypt, which was both ceremonious and 
idolatrous. On leaving Egypt and entering 
Palestine, they were still surrounded by sys- 
tems of idolatry having their priests and cer- 
emonies. Towards some of these systems of 
religion they were attracted and enticed by 
licentious rites ; towards others they were 
driven by superstitious fears. They appear at 



PURPOSE OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 87 

the same time to have been unable fully to 
realize the existence and power of an invisible 
God. The golden calf, made by the Israelites 
during a short absence of Moses, was intended 
to represent Jehovah, the God who had brought 
them out of Egypt. It was a symbolical rep- 
resentation of deity with which they had be- 
come familiar in Egypt. They were evidently 
entirely unprepared to receive and maintain 
the purely spiritual worship introduced by 
Jesus some fifteen hundred years later. A 
system of worship occupying an intermediate 
place between heathenism and Christianity 
became a substitute for idol-worship and the 
ceremonies attending it. The glitter of the 
costly furniture of the tabernacle, and after- 
wards of the temple, together with the succes- 
sion of religious rites conducted there, pre- 
sented attractions which tended to counteract 
the influence of the idolatrous systems with 
which the Jews were in constant contact. 
The religious ceremonies themselves were not 
meaningless; but, besides being prophetic of 
the sacrifice of Christ, they were of such a 
character as to teach the moral purity or holi- 
ness of God, and to inspire a reverence for 



88 CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCES. 

him wliich was not felt by the heathen towards 
their deities. Though the law of Moses con- 
tinued a ceremonious system in some respects 
like the religions of the heathen, those cere- 
monies were limited by the fact that they 
could be conducted only at one point in the 
nation. This central religion, and the costly 
temple at which it w^as conducted, came also 
to be matters of deep national interest, b3^ 
which the people were held together and kept 
from being absorbed into the heathen nations 
about them. 

The fact should also be recalled that, pre- 
vious to the coming of Christ and the estab- 
lishment of Christianity, the offering of sacri- 
fices was not peculiar to the religion of the 
Jews, but was an expression of the religious 
sentiment existing in man, and was to be wit- 
nessed in every part of the ancient world. 

The chief fact of interest, however, in re- 
gard to the Jewish temple, is that fact in 
regard to which it differed entirely from the 
temples of the heathen. Heathen temples were 
the abodes of gods of wood, stone, or metal, 
either wrought or cast, which were worshiped 
by the people. The walls of Egyptian temples 



PURPOSE OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 89 

were covered with drawings or paintings of 
sacred animals, before which the people bowed 
in adoration. 

The superstitious awe with which the peo- 
ple looked upon these images was doubtless 
increased in many instances by legends in re- 
gard to their origin. We get an insight into 
the influences by which idolatry was sustained 
in the account of the riot at Ephesus, given 
in the New Testament : 

"And the same time there arose no small 
stir about that way. For a certain man named 
Demetrius, a silversmith, which made silver 
shrines for Diana, brought no small gain unto 
the craftsmen; whom he called together Avith 
the workmen of like occupation, and said, 
Sirs, ye know that by this craft we have our 
wealth. Moreover ye see and hear, that not 
alone at Ephesus, but almost throughout all 
Asia, this Paul hath persuaded and turned 
away much people, saying that they be no 
gods, which are made with hands : so that not 
only this our craft is in danger to be set at 
naught; but also that the temple of the great 
goddess Diana should be despised, and her 
magnificence should be destroyed, whom all 



90 CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCES. 

Asia and the world worsliipeth. And when 
they heard these sayings, they were full of 
wrath, and cried out, saying, Great is Diana 
of the Ephesians. 

"And the whole city was filled with con- 
fusion : and having caught Gains and Aris- 
tarchus, men of Macedonia, Paul's companions 
in travel, they rushed with one accord into the 
theater. And when Paul would have entered 
in unto the people, the disciples suffered him 
not. And certain of the chief of Asia, which 
were his friends, sent unto him, desiring him 
that he would not adventure himself into 
the theater. 

"Some therefore cried one thing, and some 
another: for the assembly was confused; and 
the more part knew not wherefore they were 
come together. And they drew Alexander out 
of the multitude, the Jews putting him for- 
ward. And Alexander beckoned with the 
hand, and would have made his defense unto 
the people. But when they knew that he was 
a Jew, all with one voice about the space of 
two hours cried out. Great is Diana of the 
Ephesians. 

"And when the townclerk had appeased the 



PURPOSE OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 91 

people, he said, Ye men of Ephesus, what man 
is there that knoweth not how that the city of 
the Ephesians is a worshiper of the great god- 
dess Diana, and of the image which fell down 
from Jupiter? Seeing then that these things 
can not be spoken against, ye ought to be 
quiet, and to do nothing rashly." 

From this account it is evident that not 
only the people of Ephesus, but the people 
throughout Asia Minor, believed that the image, 
lodged in the magnificent temple at Ephesus, 
fell down from heaven; and that the silver- 
smiths profited by that belief. 

The Jews were forbidden to make, or to 
have, either at the temple or elsewhere, any 
representation of God, or of any being, real 
or imaginary, worshiped as God. 

In regard to the origin of the various types 
of idolatry. Colonel Ingersoll has some words 
which appear to me so truthful and so appro- 
priate that I will quote them : 

" No god was ever in advance of the nation 
that created him. The negroes represented 
their deitjes with black skins and curly hair. 
The Mongolian gave to his a yellow complex- 
ion, and dark, almond-shaped eyes. The Jews 



92 . CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCES. 

were not allowed to paint theirs, or we should 
have seen Jehovah with a full beard, an oval 
face, and an aquiline nose. Zeus was a perfect 
Greek, and Jove looked as though a member 
of the Roman senate. The gods of Egypt had 
the patient face and placid look of the loving 
people who made them. The gods of northern 
countries were represented warmly clad in 
robes of fur; those of the tropics were naked. 
The gods of India were often mounted upon 
elephants; those of some islanders were great 
swimmers, and the deities of the Arctic zone 
were passionately fond of whale's blubber. 
Nearly all people have carved or painted rep- 
resentations of their gods, and these representa- 
tions Avere, by the lower classes, generally 
treated as the real gods, and to these images 
and idols they addressed prayers and offered 
sacrifices.'^ 

That these representations — the images and 
idols — were treated as real gods is well known ; 
but how strange the exception, here casually 
noted, to a course which seems to have been 
nearly universal ;* and every student of the Old 



■'•■See end of this chapter. 



PURPOSE OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 93 

Testament, who is familiar with the history of 
the Jews for the first thousand years after their 
settlement in Palestine, is ready to underscore 
what Colonel Ingersoll says in regard to what 
they Avould have done if they had been allowed. 
Their entire history during that thousand years 
shows that they were none too elevated, and 
none too good, to do it. They would have 
made the image with the aquiline nose. They 
w^ould have treated it as the real God. They 
would have boAved down before it and wor- 
shiped it. The lowest type of superstition — 
that which lies at the base of idolatry — would 
have prevailed everywhere, as it has prevailed 
on every spot of earth where the Old Testa- 
ment has not been known. But then they were 
forbidden. This prohibition was made as con- 
spicuous as it could be made, by being placed 
in the Decalogue. It was given all the em- 
2)hasis that language could express: ^^Thou 
shalt not make unto thee any graven image, 
or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven 
above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that 
is in the water under the earth: Thou shalt 
not bow down thyself to them nor serve them.'' 
To this was added the emphasis of constant 



94 CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCES. 

repetition; as in a later chapter of the same 
book : " Thou shalt make thee no molten 
gods/' 

To recite the passages in the writings of 
Moses in which idolatry is forbidden, and 
those in which the fearful consequences of a 
return to idolatry are predicted, would be tedi- 
ous; but it may be of interest to spend a mo- 
ment upon a passage which seems to indicate 
that Moses was apprehensive that the people 
might take the particular course pointed out 
by Colonel Ingersoll. Those who do not be- 
lieve that the giving of the law was attended 
by the supernatural events described in the 
account of it, will still realize that the receiv- 
ing of the law was the great event in the 
establishment of the Jewish nation. To this 
event they would naturally look back with 
deep interest. From this event legends might 
easily arise to the effect that the great Author 
of the law had then been seen, tracing the 
outlines of his figure, and stating the majesty 
of his appearance. This step being taken, a 
ground would have been gained for painting 
and sculpture to produce representations of 
Jehovah. The tendency to this course, which 



PURPOSE OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 95 

Colonel Ingersoll believes to have been in the 
Jews, and which Moses suspected, is met by a 
statement of much value to the artist who 
might aspire to display representations of this 
kind. The twelfth verse of the fourth chapter 
of Deuteronomy reads: "And the Lord spake 
unto you out of the midst of the fire : ye heard 
the voice of the words, but saw no similitude ; 
only ye heard a voice." Passing then to the 
fifteenth verse, we read: "Take ye therefore 
good heed unto yourselves ; for ye saw no man- 
ner of similitude on the day that the Lord 
spake unto you in Horeb out of the midst of 
the fire : Lest ye corrupt yourselves, and make 
you a graven image, the similitude of any 
figure, the likeness of male or female." These 
words are followed by a list of idolatries, all 
forbidden ; as, making the likeness of beast, or 
fowl, or creeping thing, or fish ; and closing 
with the words: "And lest thou lift up thine 
eyes unto heaven, and when thou seest the sun, 
and the moon, and the stars, even all the host 
of heaven, shouldst be driven to worship them 
and serve them." The opening words of this 
list, " The likeness of male or female," appear 
to be an allusion to the course idolatry is 



96 CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCES. 

known to have almost universally taken in 
ancient nations. In Egypt the Israelites had 
been familiar with the worship of Osiris and 
Isis, male and female deities of Egypt. Both 
were beneficent beings. Osiris was slain by 
his evil brother Typhon, his body fitted into 
a chest, thrown into the Nile, and swept out 
to sea. Isis his wife seeks his body along the 
Nile. On entering Palestine the Israelites 
were still in contact with similar though more 
austere conceptions. The chief male deity of 
those regions was variously named in different 
localities — Baal, Chemosh, Malcham, Molech; 
the chief female deity- — Astarte, Ashteroth, 
Ashtoreth, Asherah. Though the mythology 
of Greece and Rome was unknown to the 
Israelites of that day, it may be mentioned as 
an illustration of the tendency of idolatry. 
The gods of these nations were male and 
female. In fact, they were men and women 
with very human passions, having a little 
greater power than ordinary mortals, and a 
slightly different diet. These conceptions led 
in sculpture to a great display of statues and 
images of the gods. Moses states that no simil- 
itude of Jehovah had been seen, and warns 



PURPOSE OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 97 

the people against attempting representations 
for which they had no foundation. This state- 
ment becomes a part of those writings which 
were carefully kept for reference, and of which 
copies were commanded to be made for special 
uses. Here is a check to the tendency to make 
those material representations of gods, male 
and female, which doubtless led to idolatry, as 
Colonel Ingersoll supposes. 

It was appropriate that one who has said 
and written much about superstition should 
note this exception to the custom, otherwise 
nearly universal among primitive nations. It 
is understood that to an atheist even the wor- 
ship of the Maker of all things is supersti- 
tion; and yet from his stand-point it may be 
seen that Moses and the religious teachers 
who worked under the institutions established 
by him left no nerve or muscle unused in the 
effort to lift the people of their nation above 
the influence of superstition of a much more 
debasing character. 

It is said by those who have amassed for- 
tunes that the great struggle is to get the first 
one thousand dollars. In the work of liber- 
ating men from the fetters of superstition, the 
7 



98 CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCES. 

religious teachers of the Old Testament took 
up this initiatory struggle. They endured the 
heat and burden of the day ; and it will not 
only be ungenerous, but unmanly, to refuse 
honor to whom honor is due. They for the 
first time demonstrated that not only a few 
leading minds, but the mass of the people 
throughout a nation, may be enabled to tram- 
ple their fetters under their feet, and engage 
in a worship which, instead of degrading, de- 
velops and ennobles human nature. 

Before leaving that part of this scheme 
which I wish to trace in the writings of 
Moses, some mention should be made of those 
minute directions and minute prohibitions by 
which the Jews were to be kept from the cus- 
toms of idolaters. Some of these prohibit 
practices prevalent in and about heathen tem- 
ples, degrading to humanity and revolting to 
civilized taste; and some prohibit practices 
which seem to have been wrong only because 
they were idolatrous. Some such passages 
have been misunderstood because the prohibi- 
tion is not accompanied by a statement of the 
custom to be kept in check by it. Colonel 
Ingersoll, in his Lecture on the Gods, says: 



PURPOSE OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 99 

" From their starry thrones they frequently 
came to the earth for the purpose of imparting 
information to man. It is related of one that 
he came, amid thunderings and lightnings, in 
order to tell the people that they should not 
cook a kid in its mother's milk.'' 

The explanation of this passage, commonly 
accepted, I will quote from M'Clintock and 
Strong's Ecclesiastical Encyclopaedia : 

^^ The thrice-repeated and much-vexed pas- 
sage, ' Thou shalt not seethe a kid in his 
mother's milk,' interpreted by some as a pre- 
cept of humanity, is explained by Cudworth 
in a very different manner. He quotes from 
a Karaite commentary, which he had seen in 
manuscript: ^It Avas a custom of the ancient 
heathens, when they had gathered in all their 
fruits, to take a kid and boil it in the dam's 
milk, and then in a magical way go about and 
besprinkle with it all the trees and fields and 
gardens and orchards ; thinking by this means 
they should make them fructify, and bring 
forth again more abundantly the following 
year.' " 

When we consider the condition in which 
these people then were, together with the rest 



100 CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCES. 

of mankind, we can not doubt that what was 
needed more than any thing else was a system 
of minute directions and prohibitions by which 
they might be led away from superstition and 
idolatry. However minute the steps so taken 
may have been, they were steps leading di- 
rectly towards the accomplishment of that 
revolution more completely inaugurated by 
Christ, which Renan pronounces the capital 
event in the history of the world. 

Though the scheme for the elimination of 
idolatry is conspicuous in nearly every part 
of the Old Testament, there is no feature of 
that scheme which may not also be traced in 
the writings of Moses, taken separately ; and 
this is a fact to which special attention will be 
called in another chapter. But it will be of 
interest to notice the writings of some who 
labored to carry out the scheme delivered 
by Moses. 

"When we consider the great anxiety of the 
prophets to destroy idolatry, and the labor 
they continually performed to effect this ob- 
ject, we shall expect to find that prophecy 
itself was among the appliances by which this 
end was to be accomplished. This I think 



PURPOSE OF TI-IE OLD TESTAMENT. 101 

will be our expectation, Avhether we believe 
prophecy to have been the foretelling of such 
events as could not have been foretold by nat- 
ural means, or to have been something akin 
to fortune-telling. Prophecy was so used in 
many ways. I shall specially point out only 
one instance. 

The prophecy of Isaiah concerning Cyrus, 
as the leader of the host that should over- 
throw Babylon, is preceded and introduced by 
the most scathing rebuke of idolatry on rec- 
ord. If some of the words on idolatry which 
are mingled with this prophecy are introduced 
here, we shall not only see the bearing and use 
of the prophecy, but we shall get an insight 
into the feeling that animated the prophet. 
God is represented as speaking: 

"Is there a God besides me? yea, there is 
no God ; I know not any. They that make a 
graven image are all of them vanity ; and 
their delectable things shall not profit; and 
they are their own witnesses; they see not, 
nor know; that they may be ashamed. Who 
hath formed a god, or molten a graven image 
that is profitable for nothing ? Behold, all his 
fellows shall be ashamed ; and the workmen^ 



102 CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCES. 

they are of men : let them till be gathered to- 
gether, let them stand up : yet they shall fear, 
and they shall be ashamed together. 

"The smith with the tongs both worketh 
in the coals, and fashioneth it with hammers, 
and worketh it with the strength of his arms : 
yea, he is hungry, and his strength faileth ; he 
drinketh no water, and is faint. The carpen- 
ter stretcheth out his rule; he marketh it out 
with a line; he fitteth it with planes, and he 
marketh it out with the compass, and maketh 
it after the figure of a man, according to the 
beauty of a man; that it may remain in the 
house. He heweth him down cedars, and 
taketh the cypress and the oak, which he 
strengtheneth for himself among the trees of 
the forest: he planteth an ash, and the rain 
doth nourish it. 

" Then shall it be for a man to burn : for 
he will take thereof, and warm himself; yea, 
he kindleth it, and baketh bread; yea, he 
maketh a god, and worshipeth it; he maketh 
it a graven image, and faileth down thereto. 
He burneth part thereof in the fire ; with part 
thereof he eateth flesh ; he roasteth roast, and 
is satisfied: yea, he Avarmeth himself, and 



PURPOSE OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 103 

saith, Aha, I am warm, I have seen the fire : 
and the residue thereof he maketh a god, even 
his graven image : he falleth dawn~ unto it, 
and worshipeth it, and prayeth unto it, and 
saith. Deliver me ; for thou art my god. 

^' They have not known nor understood : 
for he hath shut their eyes, that they can not 
see ; and their hearts, that they can not un- 
derstand. And none considereth in his heart, 
neither is there knowledge nor understanding 
to say, I have burned part of it in the fire; 
yea, also I have baked bread upon the coals 
thereof; I have roasted flesh, and eaten it: 
and shall I make the residue thereof an abom- 
ination? shall I fall down to the stock of a 
tree ? He feedeth on ashes : a deceived heart 
hath turned him aside, that he can not deliver 
his soul, nor say. Is there not a lie in my 
right hand?^^ 

Of the prophecy itself, which immediately 
follows, I will quote only a few words which 
have a bearing on the unity of God: 

"Thus saith the Lord, . . that frustrateth 
the tokens of the liars, and maketh diviners 
mad ; . . that confirmeth the word of his serv- 
ant, and perforraeth the counsel of his messen- 



104 CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCES. 

gers ; that saith of Cyrus, He is my sliepherd, 
and shall perform all my pleasure; even say- 
ing to Jerusalem, Thou shalt be built; and to 
the temple, Thy foundation shall be laid. Thus 
saith the Lord to his anointed, to Cyrus whose 
right hand I have holden, to subdue nations 
before him ; and I will loose the loins of kings, 
to open before him the two-leaved gates; and 
the gates shall not be shut; I will go before 
thee, and make the crooked places straight: I 
will break in pieces the gates of brass, and cut 
in sunder the bars of iron : and I will give 
thee the treasures of darkness, and hidden 
riches of secret places, that thou mayest know 
that I, the Lord, which call thee by thy name, 
am the God of Israel. 

"For Jacob my servant's sake, and Israel 
mine elect, I have even called thee by thy 
name: I have surnamed thee, though thou 
hast not known me. I am the Lord, and there 
is none else, there is no God besides me: I 
girded thee, though thou hast not known me; 
that they may know from the rising of the 
sun, and from the west, that there is none be- 
sides me. I am the Lord, and there is none 
else. . . . They shall be ashamed, and also 



PURPOSE OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 105 

confounded, all of them; they shall go to con- 
fusion together that are makers of idols." 

About one hundred and seventy-five years 
after this prophecy was written, Cyrus issued a 
proclamation restoring the Jews, who had then 
been for seventy years in bondage, and direct- 
ing the rebuilding of the temple at Jerusalem. 
Though this proclamation does not mention 
the prophecy, it follows its thoughts and its 
wording so nearly that w^e can scarcely doubt 
that the prophecy was before him. 

No attempt will be made at this tim-e to 
show that this prophecy was fulfilled; the in- 
tention being merely to point out prophecy, 
with what is claimed to be fulfillment, as one 
of the appliances used in the scheme of train- 
ing and education we have under consideration. 

To point out all the means used to accom- 
plish the end proposed in this scheme would 
be tedious, while it would not be important to 
our present purpose. It has been my aim to 
give prominence to the fact that the outlines 
of the scheme by which idolatry Avas done aw^ay 
still exist, and may easily be traced in the Old 
Testament. 

To learn something of the success of this 



106 CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCES. 

scheme may add to our respect for the collec- 
tion of books in which it is traced. By their 
fruits ye shall know them. Those fruits will 
be presented in the language of Renan — in 
words used by him to show the condition of 
society in which Christianity arose; the chap- 
ter from which they are taken being entitled 
^^ Place of Jesus in the World^s History." 

^^ The idea that Israel is a nation of saints, 
a tribe chosen of God, and bound to him by a 
covenant, roots itself more and more immov- 
ably. An immense expectation fills every soul. 
All Indo-European antiquity had placed Para- 
dise at the beginning; all its poets had wept a 
golden age departed. Israel placed the golden 
age in the future. The eternal poetry of relig- 
ious souls, the Psalms, were born of this exalted 
pietism, with their divine and melancholy har- 
mony. Israel became truly and pre-eminently 
the people of God, while about it the pagan 
religions became more and more degraded, in 
Persia and Babylonia to an official charlatanry, 
in Egypt and Syria to a crude idolatry, in the 
Greek and Latin world to parades. What the 
Christian martyrs did in the first centuries of 
our era, what the victims of persecuting ortho- 



PURPOSE OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 107 

doxy did in the very bosom of Christianity up 
to our time^ the Jews did during the two cent- 
uries which preceded the Christian era. They 
were a living protest against superstition and 
religious materialism." * 

Here, when Moses has been for twelve hun- 
dred years, or fifteen hundred years, quietly 
resting in his unknown grave, the scheme for 
the elimination of idolatry reaches the triumph- 
ant accomplishment of the end for which it 
was established. 



* The Persians may be cited as a people who did not 
worship images in the forms of men and beasts, but 
they probably at the first that is known of them, and 
certainly later, worshiped objects of nature. The pro- 
Jiibition placed on the Jews restrained them from that 
type of religious materialism which manifested itself, 
and increased, among the Persians, as well as from the 
grosser type more frequently met. It is the conception 
of God held by the Jews, and not that held by the 
Persians, which has extended to modern civilized na- 
tions, and has helped to give them that civilization. 



108 CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCES. 



Chapter IV. 

THE PURPOSE OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 

CONTINUED. 

IN the preceding chapter a scheme for the 
elimination of idolatry was traced. The 
present chapter will consist of a number of 
disconnected remarks upon that scheme, and 
the religion to which the Jews were led by it. 
In an argument presenting circumstantial 
evidences, the attempt is not to demonstrate 
the truth of Christianity, but to point out an* 
array of facts which accord well with the view 
that the New Testament writers wrote the 
truth, and Avhich do not accord so well Avith 
any other view. The remarks to be made in 
this chapter will partake of this character. 
They will present facts which, as it appears 
to me, accord well with the claim continually 
put forth in the Old Testament, that this 
scheme was of divine origin ; and which do 
not accord so well with any other view. 



PURPOSE OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 109 

1. The first of these remarks is suggested 
by the relation between the general enlighten- 
ment of the various nations and tribes of men 
and their religions, as pointed out hj those 
who have made this subject a special study, 
and referred to by Colonel Ingersoll. In an 
address on the " Social and Religious Condi- 
tion of the Lower Races of Man/' Sir John 
Lubbock says, '^ Every increase in science — 
that is, in positive and ascertained knowledge — 
brings with it an elevation of religion.^' Col- 
onel Ingersoll says, " The savage, as he emerges 
from a state of barbarism, gradually loses faith 
in his idols of wood and stone, and in their 
place puts a multitude of spirits. As he ad- 
vances in knowledge he generally discards the 
petty spirits, and in their stead believes in 
one, whom he supposes to be infinite and su- 
preme.'* In the passage quoted in the previ- 
ous chapter he says, "No god was ever in ad- 
vance of the nation that created him." 

It will not be questioned on the one hand 
that the Phoenicians, Greeks, and Romans 
were greatly superior to the Jews in general 
advancement in knowledge, nor on the other 
that the Jews were greatly superior to the 



110 CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCES. 

Phoenicians, Greeks, and Romans in religion. 
It has been very properly said that " the Jews 
were men in religion, and children in every 
thing else/^ 

Here is a religion superior to the religions 
found among the most enlightened men of that 
period. Was it created by the men of that 
inferior nation? I do not insist on making 
the most exacting use of the premises fur- 
nished by these writers; but here is a state 
of things that accords well with the claim put 
forth in the Old Testament, that the origin of 
its religion was superhuman. 

2. "History repeats itself.'^ This adage is 
well worn; and it is not more true in any 
thing else than in religion. What has hap- 
pened in one barbarous tribe, or semi-barbar- 
ous tribe, has happened, substantially, in an- 
other barbarous tribe, or semi-barbarous tribe, 
the differences being differences of form rather 
than of substance ; but in the scheme for up- 
rooting idolatry Ave meet something that has 
not repeated itself. Nothing like it has ever 
appeared at any other period of time, or in 
any other part of the world. 

3. The view likely to be taken by those 



PURPOSE OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. Ill 

who do not admit the claim to divine origin 
is, that there was in the Jews a tendency to 
develop a more elevated conception of God 
than was gained by other nations. This view 
has been taken by some writers on Jewish 
history. 

There is advancement in the religious and 
moral ideas of the mass of the people to be 
found in the Old Testament; but the manner 
in which this advancement is made is in sharp 
contrast with the manner in which that ad- 
vancement is made which results from an in- 
herent tendency, or trait of character. The 
manner in which the Jews advanced to relig- 
ious conceptions superior to the religious con- 
ceptions of the rest of mankind may be 
contrasted with the manner in which the 
Anglo-Saxon race, having an inherent love of 
liberty, have advanced to the freedom now en- 
joyed in England and the United States. 

Early English history displays the people 
not only in the fetters of ignorance, but with 
very insufficient defenses of their personal and 
political rights. Through various struggles 
and by various steps they secured one right 
after another, till in 1215 the Great Charter, 



112 CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCES. 

considered the ^^ basis of English liberty/^ was 
obtained. The force of the sentiment which 
demanded the Great Charter, and the amount 
of the struggle to secure it, have been under- 
estimated, on account of the belief that it was 
wrenched from a feeble king. Greenes " His- 
tory of the English People ^^ says: ^^The closer 
study of John's history clears away the charges 
of sloth and incapacity with which men tried 
to explain the greatness of his fall. The aw- 
ful lesson of his life rests on the fact that it 
was no weak and indolent voluptuary, but the 
ablest and most ruthless of the Angevins, who 
lost Normandy, became the vassal of the pope, 
and perished in a struggle of despair against 
English freedom.'' 

From this it appears that the Great Charter 
was secured because the aspirations for free- 
dom were irrepressible. These aspirations 
were held in check by such barriers as a pow- 
erful and selfish king could erect; but the bar- 
riers gave w-ay before them, "Whatever dec- 
laration of rights, whatever security against en- 
croachments upon those rights, appeared in the 
Great Charter and became part of the English 
Constitution, that declaration and those secu- 



PURPOSE OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 113 

rities appeared in the midst of the struggle to 
obtain them, instead of being found in exist- 
ence at some previous period. Each succeed- 
ing step has been taken in a similar way. 

Looking at the results at length reached 
in the Constitutions of England and the 
United States — the declarations of rights and 
the means provided to secure them — and at 
the same time looking at the statement of re- 
ligious conceptions contained in the writings 
of Moses, and the provision of means which 
should at length make those religious concep- 
tions the property of the mass of the people 
throughout the Jewish nation, we shall say 
that if the present Constitutions of England 
and the United States had been found in ex- 
istence at the dawn of English history, and 
the reluctant people had only with the lapse 
of succeeding centuries been goaded forward 
to accept the freedom for which such explicit 
provision had been made at the beginning, 
then we could compare the advancement in 
freedom in the one case with the advance- 
ment in religion in the other, pointing out 
their resemblances; but as the case actually 
stands we can only contrast the advancement 



114 CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCES. 

in freedom with the advancement in religion, 
pointing out their differences. 

The exalted conception of God to which 
the JcAvs were to be lefi, appears in the first 
sentence of the Bible : " In the beginning God 
created the heaven and the earth;'' and no 
feature of the scheme for the elimination of 
idolatry is wanting in the writings of Moses 
taken separately from the rest of the Old Testa- 
ment. If prophecy was used by later writers, 
so also it was used by Moses. If miracles 
are claimed to have been performed by later 
prophets, so also they are claimed to have been 
performed by Moses. The tabernacle built in 
the days of Moses is the pattern for the tem- 
ple of Solomon. When Ezra, Nehemiah, and 
their co-laborers take up the task of rebuilding 
Jerusalem after the captivity, we find their 
sole aim to be to bring all things into con- 
formity with the law of Moses. When the 
old dispensation had done its work, and the 
new was being introduced, ^ye, find charges 
brought against Stephen of having said that 
Jesus of Nazareth should destroy the temple 
and change the customs which Moses had 
delivered. 



PURPOSE OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 115 

It is certain tliat tlie scheme for the elimi- 
nation of idolatry was not the gradual gro^^i:h 
of centuries. If it is of merely human origin 
it sprang fully equipped from the brain of 
Moses, as Minerva was fabled to have sprung 
fully armed from the brain of Jupiter. 

For fear that I may not have made this 
contrast so plain as I wish it to be, I will illus- 
trate it. A tract of land may in the course of 
years be owned and occupied in succession by 
various members of a family having a taste 
for the improvement of their premises. Though 
the ancestor w^ho first owned this tract of land 
prescribed no plan according to which improve- 
ment should take place, an improvement at 
length displays itself in the premises because 
of the taste possessed by each of the persons 
who have occupied them. Advancement to- 
wards a display of taste in this case is made, 
as advancement towards liberty has in the 
course of centuries been made by Anglo-Saxons, 
because of inherent aspirations for it. 

A tract of land may in the course of years 
be occupied by several tenants, no one of whom 
has a taste for improving the part he occupies, 
and yet improvement at length displays itself 



116 CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCES. 

because of tlie proprietor's prescribed plan^ and 
because of certain agreements^ or covenants. 
Advancement towards a display of taste in this 
case is made as advancement among the Jews 
was made toward a more elevated religion than 
existed among other nations^ the plan of all 
the religious improvement ever made among 
the Jews having been prescribed in the writings 
of Moses. 

In this contrast we find facts which accord 
well with the claim put forth in the Old Testa- 
ment, that in the religious progress of the Jews 
we have something diiferent from the develop- 
ment of a national trait. 

4. The history of the Phoenicians, so far as 
we are acquainted with it, is suggestive; be- 
cause if the religious progress among the Jews 
is the development of a national trait, there 
are reasons for expecting to find a similar de- 
velopment among the Phoenicians. 

The Jews occupied the hills of Palestine, a 
few miles inland from the Mediterranean, from 
which they were separated in part by the coun- 
try of the Phoenicians, which stretched along 
the shore. Phoenicia was about two hundred 
miles in length, and twelve miles in width in 



PURPOSE OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 117 

its widest parts, but usually much less. It 
contained several important cities, the chief of 
which Avere Tyre and Sidon. 

The Jews and Phoenicians appear to have 
been nearly related races. They were inti- 
mately associated in matters of business, and 
their relations were usually friendly. They 
used the same language, or languages nearly 
identical. As a commercial people, some traits 
of character were developed in the Phoenicians 
which have become conspicuous in the Jews 
since they have become a commercial people. 
The ability to accumulate property was marked 
among the Phoenicians. The commercial ac- 
tivity and the prosperity of Tyre are the sub- 
jects of glowing language in the twenty-sev- 
enth and twenty-eighth chapters of Ezekiel. 
Isaiah says of Tyre: "The crowning city, 
whose merchants are princes, w^hose traffickers 
are the honorable of the earth.^^ Certainly the 
Phoenicians could make money; and the Jews 
can do this. The merchants and financiers 
among them are princes, and their traffickers 
are the honorable of the earth. 

One of the many occupations of the Phoe- 
nicians was peddling through Syria and Pales- 



118 CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCES. 

tine the products of their industries at home, 
and the goods which an extensive commerce 
brought to their seaport towns. 

At the rebuilding of Jerusalem, when Ne- 
hemiah was annoyed by persons from Tyre 
who led the Jews to break the Sabbath, they 
were trying about the gates of Jerusalem to 
sell fish, and various wares. "There dwelt 
men of Tyre also therein, which brought fish 
and all manner of ware, and sold on the Sab- 
bath unto the children of Judah, and in Jeru- 
salem." To prevent this practice the gates of 
Jerusalem were ordered to be shut on the 
evening before the Sabbath, and kept shut till 
the Sabbath should be past. Nehemiah adds, 
"So the merchants and sellers of all kind of 
ware lodged without Jerusalem once or twice. 
Then I testified against them, and said unto 
them. Why lodge ye about the wall? If ye 
do so again I will lay hands on you. From 
that time forth came they no more on the 
Sabbath." 

Those who have lived at points east of the 
great lakes will be reminded of the bent form 
of the Jew Dutchman, under his well-filled 
pack, pressing his footsteps towards the door- 



PURPOSE OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 119 

way, and ready to drive a good trade ; and per- 
haps also of Saxe^s allusion, in "Miss M'Bride/' 
to "Moses, the peddling German Jew." 

If the religious advancement among the 
Jews was the development of a national trait, 
it should be expected that the history of a 
people so nearly related, so closely associated, 
using the same language, and having similar 
characteristics, would shoAV something of a like 
tendency to advance in religion. I will quote 
a part of the language of Dr. Arnold, used in 
the American Cyclopsedia. 

"Of their religion, we know from Scrip- 
ture, and from more recent history, that it 
was a cruel and bloody superstition. They 
worshiped on high places; and they had sacred 
groves, as well as idols, which were held in 
particular abomination by the true subjects of 
the Jewish theocracy, and which were yet 
constantly owned as gods, frequented, and 
worshiped by the backsliders, both of the 
princes and of the people of Israel ; a singu- 
lar proof, if proof were needed, of the close 
connection both in race and language, as well 
as in social habits and modes of thought, be- 
tween the children of Israel and the Phoeni- 



120 CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCES. 

cians, wJiether of Syria or Africa^ who called 
themselves Canaanites. . . . Their prin- 
cipal god was Baal, Belsamen, or the ancient 
one, Moloch, as he was called by the Jewish 
rabbinical writers, who was considered by the 
Greeks as identical with Saturn, and who, in 
process of time, became in some features as- 
similated to Apollo. He was evidently the 
fire-god, or sun-god, and to him were offered 
the human sacrifices, of children more espe- 
cially, who were placed on the extended palms 
of the metallic statue, whence they rolled into 
a fiery furnace. To the sun-god was associated 
a female deity, expressive, it is believed, of 
the productive power of nature under the 
generative power of the sun, worshiped as the 
queen of heaven, Ashtoreth or Astarte, who is 
identical with the Venus Mylitta of Babylon, 
the Avaitis of Armenia, and the Venus Urania 
of Cyprus, of whose rites the sexual lusts were 
as distinct a feature as was the fiery death the 
head and front of those of the male deity.^^ 

The tendency to advance in religion, for 
which we set out to look, does not appear in 
this description. The remark of Paley in re- 
gard to the Jews may be reversed and applied 



PURPOSE OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 121 

to the Phoenicians : They were children in re- 
ligion, and men in every thing else. And 
nothing better was ever discovered, in relation 
to religion, in the history of the Phoenicians. 
They continued to offer human sacrifices down 
to the time of the Koman emperors and the 
coming of Christ. 

If we incline to believe that an adaptation 
to advancement in religion was latent in the 
Phoenicians, and y/ould display itself in favor- 
able circumstances, the facts of Old Testament 
history tend to dispel that belief; for we find 
that it is just when the JcAvish monotheism is 
maintained in its greatest purity that the two 
nations are most associated, and there appears 
to have been no buried spark to be brightened 
by this association. 

The fact that nothing analogous to the re- 
ligious progress among the Jews appears among 
the Phoenicians accords well with the claim 
put forth in the Old Testament, that the re- 
ligious progress of the Jews was due to some- 
thing more than the natural development of a 
national trait. 

5. The history of the religions of India, 
Persia, Egypt, and Greece indicates that with- 



122 CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCES. 

out the special helps found only in the Old 
Testament the mass of the people of any nation 
were unable to withstand the undertow of su- 
perstitious fears which was continually carry- 
ing men into idolatry. 

Though the religion taught by Buddha^ in 
India, approaches as nearly to a moral atheism 
as to the worship of the Being whom Chris- 
tians esteem the true God, Buddha was a 
breaker of idols. And yet, almost from the 
time of Buddha to the present day. Buddhistic 
temples have been well supplied with images 
of Buddha himself, which have been worshiped 
by the people. 

The early Persians were monotheists, 
though inclined to dualism, and given to 
magic and astrology. Later, they worshiped 
the sun and fire, and had degenerated into 
what Renan terms charlatanry. The course 
of their religious history is downward. 

It is believed that monotheism gained some 
slight foothold in Egypt at an early day. 
Whether the few Avho held this view were en- 
tirely free from idolatry can perhaps scarcely 
be determined; but, whatever may have been 
the purity in which this sentiment was held, 



PURPOSE OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 123 

it probably did not disseminate itself, and cer- 
tainly did not maintain its ground. The re- 
ligions which maintained their ground in 
Egypt, and spread to other countries, were : 
That of Osiris and Isis, which was carried to 
E-ome, but became so corrupt that its rites 
were forbidden by the government; and the 
worship of the golden calf, which was planted 
in Israel at the division of the kingdom, and 
flourished for about two hundred years. What- 
ever may have been the purity or strength of 
early monotheism in Egypt, it was lost in the 
ocean of polytheism and idolatry — carried 
down by the torrent of superstitious fears, 
as the receding tide carries down with it ob- 
jects reached at its flood. \ 
In Greece, though a few philosophers ex- 
pressed a belief in one God only, the creator 
of all things, these expressions made no im- 
pression on the multitude. They fell as snow- 
flakes fall on the surface of a lake and are 
seen no more. 

The fact is quite noticeable that, where a relig- 
ion more elevated than that held by the greater 
part of idolaters gained a foothold through the 
influence of some religious or philosophical 



124 CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCES. 

genius, the people, after the death of this re- 
ligious teacher, receded from the position in 
which he had left them. What we see in the 
Old Testament is the reverse of this. The 
people, though strongly inclined to idolatry 
during the life-time of Moses and at his death, 
under the influence of those educating appli- 
ances whose relics are still found in the Old 
Testament advanced, notwithstanding repeated 
backslidings, until ^^ they were a living protest 
against superstition and religious materialism f 
and the conception of God so established has 
since been maintained wherever the Jewish, 
Mohammedan, or Christian religion has been 
received. 

The language of certain writers, quoted 
near the beginning of this chapter, leaves us 
under the impression that idolatry is done 
away, and the worship of one supreme and 
infinite Spirit established, by an increase of 
general knowledge. It is probably true that 
general enlightenment assists in removing su- 
perstition and gaining more elevated religious 
views ; but no nation or people appears by this 
means alone to have passed from idolatry to 
the worship of one supreme and infinite Spirit. 



PURPOSE OF TI-IE OLD TESTAMENT. 125 

Phoenicia, Greece, and Rome were intelligent; 
but these were far from being free from idol- 
atry. The Parthenon at Athens and the Pan- 
theon at Rome were Avell filled with gods at 
the introduction of Christianity. At Athens, 
PauPs "spirit was stirred in him when he saw 
the city wholly given to idolatry." 

That we may have a nearer view of the 
passage before quoted from Colonel Ingersoll, 
I will repeat it here : " The savage, as he 
emerges from a state of barbarism, gradually 
loses faith in his idols of wood and stone, and 
in their place puts a multitude of spirits. As 
he advances in knowledge he generally dis- 
cards the petty spirits, and in their stead be- 
lieves in one whom he supposes to be infinite 
and supreme." 

A valiant knight, who for many years has 
stood before the Old Testament with gleaming 
sword and threatening mien, will ask no help 
from the Old Testament in making this asser- 
tion good. Reference must be had to nations 
and people entirely beyond the influence of 
the Old Testament. To give to airy nothing 
a local habitation and a name is the work of 
the poet; and I do not know that Colonel 



126 CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCES. 

Ingersoll has ever invoked the muses. Yet 
we are in urgent need of the local habitation 
and the name. Where is the nation or people 
which, under the advancement of knowledge 
alone, has taken the course pointed out in this 
passage? and what is its name? I do not say 
that the assertion is literally false ; though, for 
any fact I can now recall to the contrary, it 
virtually is so, because it ignores the influence 
of the Old Testament in bringing about this 
result. For, beyond the influence of the Old 
Testament, it does not appear that there is 
any nation or people in the world that has 
taken this course, nor that there ever was one 
that took it. 

The few expressions of elevated religious 
views which may be pointed out in ancient 
history can scarcely be considered as resulting 
from the kind of advancement specified in this 
quotation ; while the inability of the people to 
maintain those views shows the need of the 
course of training received by the Jews. The 
distinguishing merit of the Old Testament is 
in those special provisions which gave to the 
world the steady sunlight of monotheism, in- 
stead of the meteoric flashes which have at 



PURPOSE OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 127 

great intervals, for a moment, relieved the 
long night of heathenism. 

The character of the argument presented 
in these chapters will excuse me from assert- 
ing that Moses could not have foreseen the 
need of a special course of training, and pro- 
vided for it; but the fact that the needed 
course of training is found nowhere except in 
the Old Testament accords well with the claim 
there put forth, that superhuman aid was 
received. 

6. The author of the scheme for the elim- 
ination of idolatry appears to have been ac- 
quainted with certain facts in relation to edu- 
cation which are apt to be looked upon as 
modern discoveries. It is probable that no 
radical and permanent change in the type of 
civilization of a people takes place without a 
corresponding change in the organization of 
that people, which requires a lapse of time. 

The Smithsonian Report, for 1864, contains 
an account of certain European skulls taken 
from a cemetery in which they had been buried 
a thousand years or more. After comparing 
these ancient skulls with the skulls of the 
descendants of the same people, still living in 



128 CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCES. 

the vicinity, the writer says: "We have here, 
then, a population in which we may remark 
that notwithstanding the persistence of certain 
types, civilization has had for its result a sen- 
sible modification of the brain in an ascending 
scale, a direction in which progress is always 
slower than in the opposite one of degra- 
dation.'' 

Though Moses intimates the coming of a 
great prophet who would at some future period 
lead God's people, and though a later prophet 
expressly states that the Messiah at his coming 
would cause the offering of sacrifices to cease, 
yet it is apparent that Moses expected the 
institutions established by him to be of long 
continuance in their operations. This appears 
not only in the elaborate character of these 
institutions, given at the founding of a nation, 
but also in his language addressed to the peo- 
ple, in which he speaks of events which should 
happen when they should have been long in 
the land which was given them. As a matter 
of fact the space between Moses and Christ is 
sufficient, as generations are estimated, for a 
succession of forty-five generations. While 
these were passing not only were line upon 



PURPOSE OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 129 

line and precept upon precept given, but there 
was a sifting of the people which kept those 
most inclined to the worship of the true God 
and dropped the others, as well as a rigid pro- 
hibition of intermarriage with idolaters till 
those generations appeared which could stand 
^^as a living protest against superstition.'^ The 
need of this lapse of time seems to have been 
understood by the author of the scheme for 
the elimination of idolatry. 

7. It will appear, I think, to those who 
study the subject most carefully, that the estab- 
lishment of Christianity is the culmination of 
one general plan that runs through the Bible. 
But without insisting on this, at this point, if 
we consider merely the minuteness and the 
multitude of the provisions made to check and 
prevent idolatry, the length of time during 
which labor was assiduously kept up under 
the instructions delivered by Moses, the great 
importance of deliverance from polytheism and 
idolatry, and the great extent to which the 
views then established have since spread, as 
they were expected by Jewish prophets to 
spread, it will perhaps appear to many, as it 
appears to me, that the scheme we have had 
9 



130 CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCES. 

under consideration outmeasures the schemes 
of men. If this scheme is of merely human 
origin I know of no other that can be com- 
pared with it. 

8. The general plan of the argument had 
before been so fully stated, and the connection 
between the Old Testament and the New is so 
close, that it has not appeared necessary spe- 
cially to point out the bearing of the preceding 
paragraphs on the truthfulness of the New 
Testament writers. The bearing, however, of 
the remarks in this final division of this chap- 
ter will be more direct and more apparent. 
We here take our first look at a fact which 
will be more fully viewed in later chapters. 
In adopting that view of the life of Jesus, and 
the origin of Christianity of which Renan is a 
prominent representative, and which is largely 
held by those who reject the supernatural, 
enough must be attributed to good fortune to 
outrage our ideas of probability, and to render 
that view quite untenable. 

At the period of the life of Jesus, the Jews 
and such of their neighbors as had been influ- 
enced by them, differed radically from all other 
nations of that period in regard to the relig- 



PURPOSE OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 131 

ious ideas in their possession. The ideas in 
regard to which they differed from other peo- 
ple were chiefly two. One of these, their con- 
ception of God and his worship, has been 
sufficiently specified. The other idea had the 
form of an anticipation, an expectation of the 
immediate coming of a great teacher and leader, 
the Messiah. 

Though the leaders and rulers of the Jewish 
nation rejected Jesus, these ideas were the soil 
in which Christianity was planted, in which it 
took root as a stem of corn roots itself in the 
soil of a carefully prepared field, and from 
which it has grown to its present proportions. 
Soon after the death of Jesus we find the dis- 
ciples appealing to the Scriptures and convinc- 
ing men that Jesus was very Christ. Paul, 
though understood to be especially the apostle 
to the Gentiles, was accustomed, on passing 
from city to city, to seek the Jewish synagogue, 
where men and women imbued with the relig- 
ious ideas I have mentioned were wont to 
assemble. At these points the seed of the 
Gospel was planted, and from these it was 
disseminated to the neighboring Gentiles. 
Did Jesus by mere chance find a soil in this 



132 CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCES. 

state of fitness to receive the seed of Chris- 
tianity ? 

Turning to the Old Testament we find there 
the minutes of a work of education* and train- 
ing, which, to count only from the time of 
Moses, was in operation for a period of fifteen 
hundred years. In these minutes we trace the 
distinct outlines of two great schemes adapted 
to develop just the two ideas we have under 
consideration. Moses, and those who followed 
him, working under the institutions established 
by him to eliminate idolatry, appear to have 
understood that their work, however faithfully 
and successfully done, would not be complete 
in itself, but that they should be followed by 
a Leader capable of conducting the people to 
greater heights. Accordingly, while they la- 
bored with one hand to eliminate idolatry, 
they labored with the other to build up the 
expectation of the Messiah. 

One of these schemes we have had under 
consideration. Of the other only the briefest 
outline will be given here. 

If we ask ourselves how that confident ex- 
pectation of the Messiah came to be in exist- 
ence at the period of the life of Jesus, the 



PURPOSE OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 133 

answer readily suggested is, that it was confi- 
dence in the prophecies concerning the Messiah. 
But how came there to be confidence in those 
prophecies? If one of our neighbors should 
predict that in Eochelle seven hundred years 
from this date an extraordinary personage, with 
supernatural powers, would appear, and should 
give us a statement of details concerning his 
life, death, and burial, and should describe the 
influence that would be exerted by him on 
later generations, that prophecy would excite 
no expectation that the event would* take place. 
The prophecy itself would be looked upon as 
a freak of insanity. There was, however, an 
expectation of the Messiah in the minds of all 
classes which appears to have been immovable. 
The difficulty was anticipated by Moses. It 
occurred to him that men might prophesy pre- 
sumptuously even in the name of the Lord; 
talking of things they knew nothing about. 
Having warned the people against false proph- 
ets, he adds : "And if thou say in thine heart, 
How shall we know the word which the Lord 
hath not spoken? When a prophet speaketh 
in the name of the Lord if the thing follow 
not, nor come to pass, that is the thing which 



134 CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCES. 

the Lord hath not spoken, but the prophet 
hath spoken it presumptuously : thou shalt not 
be afraid of him." 

There were, then, to be prophecies of such 
nature that the people could see their fulfill- 
ment, and judge of the powers of the prophet. 
When these words were uttered prophecies 
were being fulfilled before the eyes of the 
Hebrew people. By prophetic promise they 
were to possess the land on which they were 
then just entering. 

I will select an illustration of this point 
from a later period. During the siege and 
famine of Samaria, Elisha predicted, in cir- 
cumstances of the greatest improbability, that 
on the morrow food would be plenty. The 
fulfillment of this prophecy was seen by the 
people, in circumstances that could not be 
forgotten. 

Prophecies requiring speedy fulfillment are 
mingled with those Avhich pertain to the 
Messiah. 

The use made of the confidence so gained 
may be seen in the ninth verse of the forty- 
second chapter of Isaiah : '^ Behold, the former 
things are come to pass, and new things do I 



PURPOSE OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 135 

declare: before they spring forth I tell you 
of them.^' Having made this appeal to former 
fulfillments, the prophet sweeps out into an 
exultant song and prophecy concerning the 
expected Messiah and the extent of his king- 
dom. The fulfillment of prophecies of one 
class is presented as a reason for believing 
those of the other. 

In these facts we find provision made for 
the gradual development of a confidence in 
prophecy which came at length to be a uni- 
versal and unvarying expectation of the 
Messiah. 

Our theme in this and the preceding chap- 
ter has been a scheme for the elimination 
of idolatry, and this seeming digression from 
that theme has been made merely that we 
might see the association of that scheme with 
another, a parallel scheme, extending along- 
side of it through all the centuries of the 
training and development we have been con- 
sidering. This parallel scheme gains interest, 
as well as evidence of design, from the fact 
that it pertains to a higher development of 
religion, w^hich under the coming great teacher 
should supplement, or complete, the work 



136 CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCES. 

which the prophets had immediately in hand 
in their contest with idolatry. The two 
schemes seem to be different aspects of one 
great plan aiming to lead men to an intelli- 
gent worship of God. 

It is quite improbable that an aspirant for 
the position of founder of a great religion, 
impelled by eitlier ambition or enthusiasm, 
should fall heir to the fruits of one great 
scheme which by some strange chance had 
been for centuries preparing for him; but it 
is much more improbable that he should fall 
heir to the fruits of two such schemes. 

AYe are pressed by these facts towards the 
conviction that Jesus was not an impostor, an 
enthusiast, nor a merely human religious 
teacher of high native powers, luckily born at 
the right time and place for the introduction 
of a new religion; but that the preparation 
of the soil, the plowing, the harrowing, and 
the planting of the seed were all parts of one 
great scheme, progressing under the superin- 
tendence of one great mind which saw the end 
from the beginning. 



CHARACTER OE" OLD TESTAMENT. 137 



Chapter V. 

THE CHARACTER OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 

IF I were to characterize the Old Testament 
fully and justly, I should not only dwell 
upon its leading purpose, but should point out 
other admirable features, such as its require- 
ment of justice between man and man, its 
examples of high personal character in a dark 
age, and its hymns of lofty devotion to God, 
as well as attempt explanations of its difficul- 
ties. I shall not, however, characterize the 
Old Testament fully, nor quite justly, in this 
chapter; but shall confine myself to what have 
been deemed its darker features, making this 
the only chapter of the course that will be 
entirely defensive. 

The objection to the Old Testament most 
frequently urged is, the severity of the JcAvish 
wars. The Christian is ready to admit that 
an explanation is appropriate. A suggestion 
frequently used in explanation of the severe 



138 CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCES. 

orders given by God in these wars^ that by- 
earthquakes and other calamities God permits 
all classes to be destroyed, though not without 
value on certain accounts, should be accompa- 
nied by a statement of the circumstances of 
those wars. An appeal to the analogy of 
nature, though of much force when addressed 
to an age inclined to deism, is of little force 
when addressed to an age inclined to reject 
both the God of revelation and the God of 
nature. And this analogy, without a state- 
ment of circumstances, fails to explain an ap- 
parent discrepancy between the Old Testament 
and the New. The Jewish wars were, by 
God^s command, wars of extermination. The 
Gospel deprecates all wars. If the circum- 
stances do not justify, then the approval of 
the Christian must be withheld from orders 
represented to have been given by God. And 
yet God may be just, though we fail to state 
all the justifying circumstances. It is God 
that is omniscient, not the Christian; and the 
age from which we must gather the circum- 
stances is not only distant, but dark. As w^e 
take up the subject we go backward at a single 
stride three thousand years into barbarism. 



CHARACTER OF OLD TESTAMENT. 139 

Before entering fully upon a defense of 
God's participation in those wars^ it may be 
appropriate to devote a thought to the light 
in which God's relation to them should be 
viewed. 

There are some readers critically inclined, 
and many more persons who have heard some- 
thing of the severity of those wars, but have 
not carefully read, except a few passages taken 
from their proper connections, who suppose 
that the Jews did certain severe and cruel 
acts, and then represented God as approving 
those acts. It appears to these persons that, 
if this representation is to be accepted, they 
must differ decidedly from God's judgment as 
to what is right and what is wrong. There is 
a mistake in this view of the subject which 
leaves an unfortunate impression on the mind. 
In the Old Testament narrative God does not 
appear as the approving historian of acts vol- 
untarily performed by a certain race, but as 
the commander-in-chief, who even in his se- 
verity may have had a benign purpose. He 
is also the rightful ruler and judge of those on 
whom this severity fell as a punishment. 

It will perhaps relieve us of an idea of 



140 CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCES. 

partiality towards a particular people to re- 
member that, first and last, punishments of 
like severity were inflicted on the Jews as on 
the neighboring tribes and nations. It will 
also be well to remember that the sufferings 
which in the Bible narrative appear as pun- 
ishments for sins, resemble the sufferings which 
in other histories appear as the results of na- 
tional degradation and sins. Among these 
preliminary remarks it will be appropriate to 
place a statement of the fact that though a 
particular race was used as a means in un- 
folding a religion, when that religion was fully 
unfolded it was adapted to the wants of all 
mankind, and was sent forth to all the world 
without restriction. It may further be well to 
state that it is the character of God as seen in 
the Old Testament, and not the character of 
the people, that the Christian undertakes to 
defend. There are narratives in the Old Tes- 
tament which reflect the barbarism of the age 
in which the Old Testament course of training 
was conducted, but which do not inform us as 
to God's approval or disapproval of the events 
so narrated. The taunt that our' religion in 
part descended to us from an age of barbar- 



CHARACTER OF OLD TESTAMENT. 141 

ism, instead of annoying the Christian, con- 
veys a fact which he will desire to have made 
at least so conspicuous that a middle-aged man 
can see it with the naked eye. 

The study of the Old Testament has been 
pursued with the following questions in mind : 

1. Is there in the Old Testament an outline 
of a scheme for the accomplishment of an im- 
portant end — an end of such importance as to 
furnish an explanation of God^s taking a special 
course in the first establishment and later his- 
tory of a particular nation; and was that end 
accomplished ? 

2. Could this scheme have been set on foot, 
and maintained without the severity which 
appears in the Old Testament? 

3. If it could not, w^as it best that God 
should set this scheme on foot; and could he 
do so without injustice? 

My answer to the first of these questions, 
that in relation to the outline of a scheme and 
the accomplishment of an end, is contained in 
the two preceding chapters. 

Could this scheme have been set on foot 
and maintained w^ithout the severity which 
appears in the Old Testament? The influence 



142 CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCES. 

which suggests itself as appropriate when we 
think of leading a people away from supersti- 
tion is reason. Moses should have reasoned 
with the people. And so he did. His writings 
taught them of the Maker of all things, and 
that Maker's right to their allegiance. He 
reasoned with them of a Being who, with a 
mighty hand and with an outstretched arm, 
had brought them forth out of Egypt. But, 
while Moses reasoned, the peoj)le had arrange- 
ments more convenient than any thing Moses 
seemed inclined to teach them. They had gods 
in their pockets, carried perhaps as a potato is 
sometimes carried to drive away rheumatism, 
or wrapped in the folds of their garments, or 
hid away in their tents, which they could draw 
out and worship at their convenience. They 
were at least charged with secretly worshiping 
idols, while they openly gave their allegiance 
to Jehovah. 

Let this hint of the difficulties in the way 
of establishing the scheme discovered in the 
Old Testament introduce a fcAV words upon 
the probable position of the Jews, and those 
by whom they were surrounded, in the scale 
of civilization. The people of Egypt were 



CHARACTER OF OLD TESTAMENT. 143 

divided into four classes. The lowest of these 
was composed of herdsmen. The social posi- 
tion of the herdsmen, or shepherds, is indi- 
cated in the language of Joseph to his brethren : 
"For every shepherd is an abomination unto 
the Egyptians." In this lowest class the chil- 
dren of Israel took their position on entering 
Egypt. Though kindly treated at first, their 
position grew more irksome, and at the end 
of their four hundred years' sojourn in Egypt 
they bowed under the burdens of the severest 
servitude. While so depressed and degraded 
by servitude, the sensuous, material religion 
of their masters continually appealed to their 
superstition. The effects of this experience 
were apparent after the Israelites emerged from 
their Egyptian bondage. 

We gain some insight into their condition 
on reading the language which Moses addressed 
to them. Language which good taste forbids 
us to repeat was doubtless not only in good 
taste when addressed by Moses to his brethren, 
but conveyed to them the warnings which 
their condition demanded. There are passages 
in the addresses of Moses which were not cer- 
tainly addressed to beasts, but which could 



144 CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCES. 

have been addressed with propriety only to 
beastly men. And yet the tone of earnest 
solicitation in which these addresses are given 
betrays the apprehension in the mind of Moses 
that his brethren were just ready to plunge 
into the vices against which he warns them. 
These warnings are also coupled with the 
strongest possible intimations that the sur- 
rounding nations were weltering in the depths 
of a degradation above which the Jews were 
still in part sustained. 

"Defile not ye yourselves in any of these 
things: for in all these the nations are defiled 
which I cast out before you: and the land is 
defiled : therefore do I visit the iniquity thereof 
upon it, and the land itself vomiteth out her 
inhabitants. Ye shall therefore keep my stat- 
utes and my judgments, and shall not commit 
any of these abominations ; neither any of your 
own nation, nor any stranger that sojourneth 
among you: (for all these abominations have 
the men of the land done, which were before 
you, and the land is defiled;) that the land 
spew not you out also, when ye defile it, as it 
spewed out the nations that were before you.'' 

The book of Judges recites the doings of a 



CHARACTER OF OLD TESTAMENT. 145 

savage people in a barbarous age. The writer 
•says: "In those days there was no king in 
Israel : eveiy man did that which was right in 
his own eyes." That is, every man did as he 
chose till some outbreaking violence stirred 
'the sea of passions and brought violent retribu- 
tion. In the tribe of Benjamin an outrage 
was commited, the details of which I need not 
recite. The husband of the outraged and mur- 
dered woman took her dead body, and cutting 
it into twelve pieces, sent a piece to each of 
the twelve tribes, with a recital of the outrage. 
Three successive bloody battles followed, and 
the tribe of Benjamin was nearly exterminated. 
But then a revulsion of feeling set in, and the 
people "lifted up their voices and wept sore; 
and said, O Lord God of Israel, why is this 
come to pass in Israel, that there should be 
to-day one tribe lacking in Israel?" They 
give their counsel as to the best method of 
rebuilding the tribe of Benjamin; and then 
follow scenes of wife-stealing, precisely analo- 
gous to the wife-stealing scenes which occur in 
modern times among barbarous tribes. 

The continuous record of the Jewish nation, 
from its establishment to its overthrow, fur- 
10 



146 CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCES. 

nishes an explanation of the Old Testament 
severities, and at the same time shows us the 
material out of which the Old Testament course 
of training made that people, which at length 
stood, alone in all the world, ^^ a living protest 
against superstition/^ 

An army officer, a few years ago, published 
a book, giving his view of the Indians and the 
western border difficulties. His statement was 
in substance this : The civilized man has many 
influences. He has conscience, and religion, 
and honesty, and honor, and prudence. The 
Indian has but one, and that one is fear. Fear, 
probably, was not the only line along which the 
mind of the early Jew could be approached ; but 
those higher avenues through which the mind 
of the civilized man is approached were nearly 
closed. Fear was used as an influence in this 
way: The Jews were commanded to execute 
the punishment claimed to be due to the na- 
tions that were driven out; and taught that 
for like offenses like punishments would fall 
on them; that for like degradation the land 
would spew them out as it spewed out the 
nations that were before them. The tendency 
to idolatry, which the institutions of Moses 



CHARACTER OF OLD TE'STAMENT. 147 

were designed to correct, was largely due to 
fear. The gods of the stirrounding nations 
were believed to be able to inflict dire calami- 
ties, or, on the other hand, to deliver from 
them. This fear could perhaps be best met 
with fear, as fire is fought with fire. 

In considering whether the scheme for the 
elimination of idolatry could have been set 
on foot and maintained without the Old Tes- 
tament severity, it will be helpful to read 
Moses's statement of the reason why this 
course was required, and then a few passages 
of later history which seem to show the ne- 
cessity for the requirement. 

The statement of Moses may be taken from 
Deuteronomy vii : '^ "When the Lord thy God 
shall bring thee into the land whither thou 
goest to possess it, and hath cast out many 
nations before thee, the Hittites, and the 
Girgashites, and the Amorites, and the Ca- 
naanites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, 
and the Jebusites, seven nations greater and 
mightier than thou; and when the Lord thy 
God shall deliver them before thee ; thou shalt 
smite them, and utterly destroy them ; thou 
shalt make no covenant with them, nor shew 



148 CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCES. 

mercy unto them : neither shalt thou make 
marriages Avith them; thy daughter thou shalt 
not give unto his son^ nor his daughter shalt 
thou take unto thy son. For they will turn 
away thy son from following me, that they 
may serve other gods : so will the anger of the 
Lord be kindled against you, and destroy thee 
suddenly. But thus shall ye deal with them; 
ye shall destroy their altars, and break down 
their images, and cut down their groves, and 
burn their graven images with fire. For thou 
art a holy people unto the Lord thy God : the 
Lord thy God hath chosen thee to be a special 
people unto himself, above all people that are 
upon the face of the earth." 

But little comment on my part will be re- 
quired in showing the Old Testament view of 
the necessity for this severity in repressing the 
idolatry of the surrounding nations, Avhich was 
continually pressing in upon the Jews. 

Judges ii, 7 to 13 : "And the people served 
the Lord all the days of Joshua, and all the days 
of the elders that outlived Joshua, who had seen 
all the great works of the Lord, that he did for 
Israel. And Joshua the son of Nun, the serv- 
ant of the Lord, died, being a hundred and ten 



CHARACTER OF OLD TESTAMENT. 149 

years old. And they buried him in the border 
of his inheritance in Timnath-heres, in the 
Mount of Ephraim, on the north side of the 
hill Gaash. And also all that generation were 
gathered unto their fathers : and there arose 
another generation after them, which knew not 
the Lord, nor yet the works which he had 
done for Israel. And the children of Israel 
did evil in the sight of the Lord, and served 
Baalim: and they forsook the Lord God of 
their fathers, which brought them out of the 
land of Egypt, and followed other gods, of the 
gods of the people that were round about 
them, and bowed themselves unto them, and 
provoked the Lord to anger. And they for- 
sook the Lord, and served Baal and Ashtaroth.^' 

This relapse into idolatry is represented as 
resulting in part from failure fully to drive 
out the people who were to be expelled, some 
of them being permitted to dwell among the 
Israelites. 

None of the requirements of the Jewish 
law were more strict than those which per- 
tained to intermarriage with the people of 
surrounding nations; and the severities com- 
plained of by unbelievers were chiefly de- 



150 CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCES. 

signed to prevent leagues and marriages with 
surrounding nations. The Bible history, after 
dwelling on the prosperity that attended the 
faithful maintenance of monotheism through 
the reign of David and the earlier portions 
of the reign of Solomon, adds : 

" But King Solomon loved many strange 
women, together with the daughter of Pharaoh, 
women of the Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, 
Zidonians, and Hittites ; of the nations con- 
cerning which the Lord said unto the children 
of Israel, Ye shall not go in to them, neither 
shall they come in unto you : for surely they 
will turn away your heart after their gods. 
Solomon clave unto these in love. And he 
had seven hundred wives, princesses, and three 
hundred concubines : and his wives turned 
away his heart. For it came to pass, when 
Solomon was old, that his wives turned away 
his heart after other gods : and his heart was 
not perfect with the Lord his God, as was the 
heart of David his father. For Solomon went 
after Ashtoreth, the goddess of the Zidonians, 
and after Milcom, the abomination of the Am- 
monites. And Solomon did evil in the sight 
of the Lord, and went not fully after the 



CHARACTER OF OLD TESTAMENT. 151 

Lord, as did David his father. Then did Sal- 
omon build a high place for Chemosh, the 
abomination of Moab, in the hill that is before 
Jerusalem, and for Molech, the abomination 
of the children of Ammon. And likewise did 
he for all his strange wives, which burnt in- 
cense and sacrificed urito their gods/' 

Allusions to David like those in this pas- 
sage produce an unfavorable prejudice, which 
it will be well to remove in passing. The 
sins of David are sharply rebuked at appro- 
priate times ; but through all his career his 
allegiance to the true God Avas unswerving, 
and unmixed with the worship of the gods of 
surrounding nations. It is in this respect that 
he is held up as a pattern for later kings. 
None of his children were thrown into the 
fire to appease Molech, as some of the chil- 
dren of Solomon quite possibly were. 

During the reign of David and the earlier 
portions of the reign of Solomon, the true 
worship had seemed so established that inter- 
course and intermarriage with other nations 
might be freely allowed; but the marriages 
of Solomon show that the true worship was 
not so established as to sanction that course. 



152 CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCES. 

1 Kings xvi : " And Aliab the son of Omri 
did evil in the sight of the Lord above all 
that were before him. And it came to pass, 
as if it had been a light thing for him to walk 
in the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat 
[that is, as if it had been a light thing for 
him to maintain the worship) of the golden 
calves which Jeroboam had set up about fifty 
years before, at the dividing of the kingdom], 
that he took to wife Jezebel, the daughter of 
Ethbaal, king of the Zidonians, and went and 
served Baal, and worshiped him. And he 
reared up an altar for Baal in the house of 
Baal, which he had built in Samaria. And 
Ahab made a grove; and Ahab did more to 
provoke the Lord God of Israel to anger than 
all the kings of Israel that were before him.'' 

This Phoenician woman, Jezebel, became a 
power in the land for wickedness, her husband 
becoming a mere puppet in her hand. It was 
when Jezebel had threatened the life of Elijah, 
and he had fled into the wilderness burdened 
with discouragement, that he said, " I have 
been very jealous for the Lord God of Hosts: 
because the children of Israel have forsaken thy 
covenant, thrown down thine altars, and slain 



CHARACTER OF OLD TESTAMENT. 153 

thy prophets with the sword; and I, even I 
only, am left ; and they seek my life, to take 
it away.^^ But he was mistaken. There Avere 
seven thousand in Israel that had not bowed 
the knee to Baal nor kissed him. We get a 
hint of the kind of life these were leading, in 
an explanatory note concerning an officer of 
the king: 

" Now Obadiah feared the Lord greatly : 
for it was so, when Jezebel cut oif the proph- 
ets of the Lord, that Obadiah took a hundred 
prophets, and hid them by fifty in a cave, and 
fed them with bread and water." 

The representatives of the true w^orship 
were in the wilderness, or under ground. 
This state of things had resulted from a dis- 
regard of one of the requirements which in 
the law of Moses had been coupled with the 
command to cut off and drive out the previ- 
ous inhabitants of the land. 

Athaliah, daughter of Jezebel, married a 
prince of Judah, and carried the worship of 
Baal into the southern kingdom also. 

The career of Ahaz, king of Judah, may be 
cited in illustration of the -necessity for the 
severe orders given to the Jews in the law of 



154 CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCES. 

Moses, in several respects. IS"© covenants, or 
leagues, were to be made with the heathen 
nations about them: yet "Ahaz sent messen- 
gers to Tiglath-pileser, king of Assyria, saying, 
I am thy servant and son: come up, and save 
me out of the hand of the king of Syria, and 
out of the hand of the king of Israel, which 
rise up against me." The help so gained not 
only cost the dismantling of the temple and 
the king's palace, but the alliance led to the 
introduction of new phases of idolatry. In 
this experience we see the need of the pro- 
hibition against covenants with the heathen. 
The history of this king shows the opera- 
tion of that fear which could perhaps only be 
checked by counteracting fear. "And in the 
time of his distress did he trespass yet more 
against the Lord : this is that king Ahaz. For 
he sacrificed unto the gods of Damascus, which 
smote him: and he said, Because the gods of 
the kings of Syria help them, therefore will I 
sacrifice to them, that they may help me. But 
they were the ruin of him, and of all Israel." 
His history further illustrates the evils and 
sufferings from which a large part of mankind 
are now saved, as a result of the training given 



CHARACTER OF OLD TESTAMENT. 155 

to the early Jews. "For he walked in the 
ways of the kings of Israel, and made also 
molten images for Baalim. Moreover he burnt 
incense in the valley of the son of Hinnom, 
and burnt his children in the fire, after the 
abomination of the heathen whom the Lord 
had cast out before the children of Israel.^' 

One more point I wish to illustrate by 
means of the closing words of the passage just 
quoted. Similar words are used in various 
parts of the Old Testament in relation to the 
Jews: ^^ After the abomination of the heathen 
whom the Lord had cast out before the chil- 
dren of Israel." Some of these tribes and 
nations lingered on their borders, and kindred 
nations were near. Their influence was still 
great, but not what it would have been if they 
had been left to mingle freely Avith the chil- 
dren of Israel. If the Old Testament history 
teaches any thing, it teaches that in order to 
the establishment and maintenance of the 
scheme for the elimination of idolatry it w^as 
necessary that a certain spot of earth should 
be to a large extent wiped, and cleared of 
these abominations, "as a man wipeth a dish." 
This fact will be more fully impressed on 



156 CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCES. 

our minds if we consider the time during which 
the struggle continued, and the slow progress 
made even with the severity used in repressing 
idolatry. The institutions of Moses designed 
to counteract idolatry had been in operation 
about seven hundred years at the time of Ahaz. 
About fifty years later we reach the reign of 
Manasseh. ^^And he did that which was evil 
in the sight of the Lord, after the abomina- 
tions of the heathen, whom the Lord cast out 
before the children of Israel. For he built up 
again the high places which Hezekiah his 
father had destroyed; and he reared up altars 
for Baal, and made a grove as did Ahab, king 
of Israel ; and worshiped all the host of heaven, 
and served them. And he built altars in the 
house of the Lord, of which the Lord said. In 
Jerusalem will I put my name. And he built 
altars for all the host of heaven in the two 
courts of the house of the Lord. And he 
made his son pass through the fire, and ob- 
served times, and used enchantments, and dealt 
with familiar spirits and wizards : he wrought 
much wickedness in the sight of the Lord, to 
provoke him to anger. And he set a graven 
image of the grove that he had made, in the 



CHARACTER OF OLD TESTAMENT. 157 

house, of wliicli the Lord said to David and to 
Solomon his son, In this house, and in Jerusa- 
lem, which I have chosen out of all the tribes 
of Israel, will I put my name forever : neither 
will I make the feet of Israel move any more 
out of the land which I gave their fathers ; 
only if they will observe to do according to 
all that I have commanded them, and accord- 
ing to all the law that my servant Moses com- 
manded them. But they hearkened not: and 
Manasseh seduced them to do more evil than 
did the nations whom the Lord destroyed 
before the children of Israel/' 

In Ezekiel we have a vivid description of 
idolatries practiced in Jerusalem about nine 
hundred years after the law of Moses was 
given; but it will not be quoted because of the 
length to which this chapter is growing. Not- 
withstanding the obstinate perseverance of the 
Jews in idolatry, the law of Moses was not 
admitted to have been a failure. But on their 
restoration after the captivity the law in all its 
minutiae was the guide in re-establishing the 
nation ; and this final struggle ushers in success. 

The reading of so many passages from the 
Old Testament history may have been tedious; 



158 CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCES. 

but in these passages, and certainly in the entire 
history from which these are taken, it appears 
to me that we have a sufficient answer to the. 
second of the questions proposed. The scheme 
for the elimination of idolatry could not have 
been set on foot and maintained without the 
severity which appears in the Old Testament. 
3. Was it best that God should set this 
scheme on foot; and could he do so without 
injustice? In certain emergencies very severe 
orders have been best. During the anarchy 
of the French Revolution Napoleon ordered 
cannon to be stationed in the streets of Paris 
and fired upon the people. The order was 
severe; but in the state of things then exist- 
ing it was best for Paris and best for France 
that the order should be given. During the 
riot in New York City, which began July 13, 
1863, occasioned by the draft, the police and 
soldiers were ordered to fire upon the mob; 
and it is estimated that during the riot about 
one thousand persons were killed. In the 
accounts of the riot it was stated that some 
of the rioters had climbed to the roofs of 
buildings, and that when fired upon they slid 
from the roofs and fell on the pavement with 



CHARACTER OF OLD TESTAMENT. 159 

a dull heavy thud. The accounts were horrid. 
And yet when we consider the greater number 
of lives then exposed on the battle-field, and 
the danger in which the country itself was 
placed, we can only say that those severe orders 
were best. 

Wherever the ancient world is looked in 
upon, the tendency to superstition, idolatry, 
and debasing modes of worship, appears as a 
murky current of sufficient force to bear down, 
and carry before it, all ordinary barriers. If 
idolatry was to be checked extraordinary means 
must be used. 

Revolutions which overthrow beastly habits, 
long established superstitions, and firmly rooted 
prejudices, are seldom if ever effected pain- 
lessly. During the late war Whittier wrote : 

"We wait beneath the furnace blast 
The pangs of transformation ; 

Not painlessly doth God recast 
And mold anew the nation. 

Hot burns the fire, 

Where wrongs expire; 

Nor spares the hand 

That from the land 

Uproots the ancient evil. 

Before the joy of peace must come 
The pains of purifjdng." 



160 CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCES. 

In considering whether it was best that 
God should set this scheme on foot, we can 
not wisely ignore the results that have fol- 
lowed; though we may not be able fully to 
estimate them, nor fully to separate them from 
the results of other influences. To the Chris- 
tian it appears that the elimination of idolatry 
was the first step in the introduction of an 
intelligent worship of God; and this appears 
to him a rtiatter above estimation. But on a 
lower plane we find facts which an unbeliever 
will be more likely to appreciate. Hume, on 
recounting the degradation and sufferings of 
the people of ancient nations, says that on the 
account of humanity one could wish the wish 
of Caligula, that the people had but one neck 
that they might be finished at a single blow. 
The sufferings which result from superstitious 
fears are still felt among the heathen; and 
human life is frequently destroyed on account 
of witchcraft. Nor have we any good reason 
to assert, with much assurance, that without 
the influence of the Old Testament training 
we should be less likely than Solomon to 
practice the horrid rites of Molech. Without 
entering into a minute comparison of heathen- 



CHARACTER OF OLD TESTAMENT. 161 

ism with Christianity, it will not be extrava- 
gant to assert that men are saved from more 
suffering and discomfort during a modern 
century — probably during a modern decade — 
as a result of the Old Testament scheme, than 
were caused by the severities through which 
it was established. 

The benefits of a Christian civilization are 
not merely in its averting evils, but also in its 
bringing positive advantages. The fact that 
inventions made "for the use of man" are 
extending from us towards the heathen, and not 
coming from them towards us, has been men- 
tioned; but it should be considered in this 
connection as among the facts which justify 
the steps taken to remove idolatry. 

Could God set this scheme on foot without 
injustice? A father has the right to govern 
his children. It is a right which another man 
may not presume to exercise. This is his pre- 
rogative. The chief executive of a nation has 
certain rights which he may exercise in the 
government of the people, and which another 
man may not presume to exercise. These are 
his prerogatives. The Creator has certain 
rights which he may exercise in the govern- 
11 



162 CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCES. 

ment of created beings, and which no other 
may exercise. These are his prerogatives. 
God's prerogatives as the creator and governor 
of the world separate him so widely from the 
position of men that the charge of injustice 
should be made only with great caution. 
Some of the facts affecting the justice or in- 
justice of God's acts may lie beyond our 
reach. 

The punishments inflicted an the Canaan- 
ites differed from the punishments which have 
fallen on corrupt tribes and nations through- 
out the w^orld's history only in the fact that 
they were inflicted at the direct command of 
God. If those commands were from God, so 
also were the statements which accompanied 
them, that those people deserved the punish- 
ment they received. How shall we know that 
those statements were not true? Until we 
know that they are untrue, we can draw no 
argument of any force against the Bible from 
the mere fact that the Canaanites were de- 
stroyed or driven out. That the nations driven 
out were corrupt w^e can not doubt. Just- 
what their responsibility for being in this 
condition was, it is not so easy for us to de- 



CHARACTER OF OLD TESTAMENT. 163 

termine. The book of Job, representing an 
earlier period, displays a better state of soci- 
ety — a light sufficient, if well used, to have 
led to something better than the human sacri- 
fices and the beastly practices of the Canaan- 
ites of the days of Moses. 

But what shall be said of the children who 
suffered in the overthrow of those nations? 
Just what is said of the generation now grow- 
ing up in poverty at the South, as a result of 
the punishments inflicted on that section by 
the general government, and just what is said 
of those who suffer by earthquakes and other 
calamities, whatever that may be. In the 
mind of one man these facts will argue that 
there is no God ; in the mind of another they 
will point to a future state. The Being who 
commanded the invasion of Canaan, and whose 
eye swept down the line of generations to the 
redemption of man and to the incoming of a 
higher and better civilization, also held in his 
hand the resources of another state of being. 
It is quite too much for me, from my stand- 
point, to assert that God has done injustice to 
any. I can not know that the assertion is 
true; nor can any one who bases his rejection 



164 CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCES. 

of Christianity on the severity of the Jew- 
ish wars. 

The circumstances stated in this chapter 
have been presented to show why God might 
command a course apparently at variance with 
the sentiments of the New Testament. It will 
also be well to notice that war is deprecated 
in the Old Testament, as well as in the New. 
David was commended for having thought to 
build the temple, but was forbidden to build 
it because he had been a man of war and had 
shed blood. Isaiah prophesied of the expected 
Messiah as the Prince of Peace, and looked 
forward to a time when swords should be 
beaten into plowshares, and men should learn 
war no more. 

The means by which preparation was made 
for the coming of Christ probably passed be- 
fore Elijah, while lodged in the cave at Horeb, 
in a panorama of symbols, when it is said : 
" And, behold, the Lord passed by, and a great 
and strong wind rent the mountains, and brake 
in pieces the rocks before the Lord; but the 
Lord was not in the wind : and after the wind 
an earthquake; but the Lord was not in the 
earthqua'ke : and after the earthquake a fire ; 



CHARACTER OF OLD TESTAMENT. 165 

but the Lord was not in the fire : and after 
the fire a still small voice. And it was so, 
when Elijah heard it, that he wrapped his face 
in his mantle, and went out, and stood in the 
entering in of the cave." 

Elijah had fought the enemies of the true 
religion with fire and sword ; and now, having 
fled from the fury of an idolatrous court, and 
lain down exhausted, God teaches his servant, 
if the view of the believer is correct, that he 
should ultimately show himself to the world 
in the use of entirely different and altogether 
peaceful means. If it should appear to my 
unbelieving friends that the vision of Elijah 
was a dream with which God had nothing to 
do, I shall not be at all annoyed by that view 
of it ; but I shall be pleased if the fact should 
be recognized, that we have here a beautiful 
picture of what actually happened in Jewish 
history, including the coming of Christ. 

There is an analogy between the convul- 
sions of nature which preceded the coming of 
man, an intellectual and moral being, made in 
the image of his Maker, and the convulsions 
of society which preceded the coming of Christ. 
Hugh Miller, in speaking of the revolutions 



166 CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCES. 

which preceded the introduction of man, says: 
^' Now, a partially consolidated planet, tem- 
pested by frequent earthquakes, of such terri- 
ble potency that those of the historic ages 
would be but mere ripples of the earth's sur- 
face in comparison, could be no proper home 
for a creature so constituted. . . . The 
reasoning brain would have been wholly at 
fault in a scene of things in which it could 
neither foresee the exterminating calamity 
while yet distant nor control it when it had 
come ; and so the reasoning brain was not 
produced until the scene had undergone a slow 
but thorough process of change, during which 
at each progressive stage it had furnished a 
platform for higher and still higher life. When 
the coniferse could flourish on the land, and 
fishes subsist in the seas, fishes and cone- 
bearing plants were created; when the earth 
became a fit habitat for reptiles and birds, 
reptiles and birds were produced; with the 
dawn of a more stable and mature state of 
things the sagacious quadruped was ushered 
in ; and, last of all, when man's house was 
fully prepared for him — when the data on 
which it is his nature to reason and calculate 



CHARACTER OF OLD TESTAMENT. 167 

had become fixed and certain — the reasoning, 
calculating brain was molded by the creative 
finger, and man became a living soul. Such 
seems to be the true reading of the wondrous 
inscription chiseled deep in the rocks.^^ 

Convulsions like these rent and heaved the 
crust of primeval society ; but God was not in 
the convulsions, except to guide the forces in 
the preparation for something better. 

" At last, a voice all still and small 
Rose sweetly on the ear ; 
Yet rose so shrill and clear that all 
In heaven and earth might hear ; 
It spoke of peace, it spoke of love, 
It spoke as angels speak above ; 
And God himself was there." 

— Thomas Campbell. 

It is a matter of interest to learn in what 
light Jesus viewed the religious teachers of 
the Old Testament. Their prophecies were 
being fulfilled; their sincerity was at least 
implied; but the imperfection of their view 
of spiritual things is also asserted. John the 
Baptist's disciples having come to Jesus ask- 
ing, ^^Art thou he that should come, or look 
we for another?" being informed, and having 
departed, Jesus said to the multitude, ^^What 



168 CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCES. 

went ye out into the wilderness to see? A 
prophet? Yea, I say unto you, and more 
than a prophet. For this is he of whom it 
was written, Behold, I send my messenger 
before thy face, which shall prepare thy way 
before thee. Verily I say unto you, among 
them that are born of women there hath not 
risen a greater than John the Baptist; not- 
withstanding, he that is least in the kingdom 
of heaven is greater than he.'' The connec- 
tion shows that the kingdom of heaven here 
referred to is the Christian dispensation, at 
that time being unfolded. The purport of the 
passage seems to be that the least, in the new 
dispensation, would be able to get clearer 
views — better conceptions of religion — than 
the greatest in the old. The contrast is placed 
in a strong light. 

Again he says to those about him, " Many 
prophets and kings have desired to see those 
things which ye see, and have not seen them; 
and to hear those things which ye hear, and 
have not heard them." 

The Jews appear to have been fed as fast 
as they were prepared to digest — taught as 
fast as they were prepared to practice. Paul 



CHARACTER OF OLD TESTAMENT. 169 

calls the provisions of the law ^^ beggarly ele- 
ments ^^ — beggarly, or meager in instruction, 
as compared with Christianity; elements like 
the elementary matter prepared for children. 

The system of religion more directly ad- 
dressed to us is contained in the New Testa- 
ment. Viewed through the New Testament, 
the Old Testament furnishes evidence to the 
advocate, and illustration to the teacher, of 
Christianity. The germs of Christian doctrines 
are found in the Old Testament ; but the germ 
imbedded in the acorn is not to be mistaken 
for the oak in the forest. The preliminary 
training was necessarily local. The commission 
to the Christian Church is, "Go ye into all 
the world and preach'^ — not the ceremonies of 
the law — not the severities required to repress 
idolatry — much less the appetites and passions 
of a half-civilized people — but, "Go ye into 
all the world and preach the GospeV 

It has been my purpose to take up several 
particular passages of the Old Testament; but 
within such limits as will be sufferable for this 
chapter, I can only speak briefly of one. 

Objection has been made to the words, 
"Visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the 



170 CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCES. 

children unto the third and fourth generation 
of them that hate me.^^ There are well known 
ways in which children suffer for the sins of 
their fathers^ which may furnish a part of the 
explanation. The children of debauched and 
degenerate parents fail to receive the protec- 
tion, care, and education which is their natural 
right. They also inherit weaknesses entailed 
by such parents. But the explanation should 
perhaps be chiefly drawn from the language 
with which these words stand immediately con- 
nected, and from language elsewhere used in 
the Old Testament. The commandment to 
which these words are appended prohibits the 
making and worshiping of images; and the 
words we are considering, introduced by, "I 
am a jealous God," and closing with, "them 
that hate me," evidently have special reference 
to sins of this class. 

It appears that various types of idolatry 
bore the names of the men who introduced 
them. At the dividing of the kingdom Jero- 
boam, son of Nebat, set up two golden calves, 
one in Bethel and one in Dan. The worship 
of these calves continued during the existence 
of the northern kingdom — about two hundred 



CHARACTER OF OLD TESTAMENT. 171 

and fifty years — and in tlie history of that 
period it uniformly bears the name of "the 
sin of Jeroboam, son of JSTebat.'^ This sin was 
visited upon his son, and upon his successors, 
not merely because the father and the founder 
of the nation committed this sin, and gave it 
his name, but because these "walked in the 
ways of Jeroboam, son of Nebat," and com- 
mitted the same sin. 

In the eighteenth chapter of Ezekiel we 
read : " What mean ye that ye use this proverb 
concerning the land of Israel, saying. The 
fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the chil- 
dren's teeth are set on edge? As I live, saith 
the Lord God, ye shall not have occasion any 
more to use this proverb in Israel. Behold 
all souls are mine ; as the soul of the father, 
so also the soul of the son is mine : the soul 
that sinneth it shall die. . . . The son 
shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither 
shall the father bear the iniquity of the son : 
the righteousness of the righteous shall be upon 
him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall 
be upon him.'' 

In closing this discussion of the purpose 
and character of the Old Testament, which 



172 CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCES. 

has now extended througli three chapters, I 
will add a word upon the manner in which 
the Old Testament is read by different per- 
sons. The critical have looked for mistakes — 
for indications of ignorance and weakness. 
The only effect upon the believer that could 
be expected from pointing out these, would 
be some modification of his view of the inspi- 
ration of the Old Testament writers. For, 
while the general purpose of the Old Testa- 
ment is conspicuous on the face of that collec- 
tion of writings, its bearing on the truth of 
the statements made by the New Testament 
writers will always be the same — always favor- 
able, and always important. One man looks 
into this sacred book for indications of human 
ignorance and weakness; another looks into 
this history of a human race to find mingled 
with it indications of superhuman wisdom and 
forethought. Both find what they look for. 



PROPHECY AS A FACT OF HISTORY. 173 



Chapter VI. 

THE EXISTENCE OF PROPHECY AS A FACT OF 

HISTORY, SHOWN IN THE EXPERIENCE 

OF CITIES AND NATIONS. 

MANY, on hearing the prophets mentioned 
as persons who foretold events, associate 
them with fortune-tellers. These, if they study 
the fulfillment of the prophecies at all, do so 
under the influence of an unfavorable, and 
unfortunate, prejudice. Fortune-tellers degrade 
men. The prophets elevated those who were 
influenced by them. Fortune-tellers lead men 
into superstition. The prophets were the chief 
human agencies in executing that scheme whose 
outlines we have traced, and which eclipses 
every other scheme, or work, in saving men 
from superstition — that by which idolatry was 
destroyed — and it does not diminish our respect 
for prophecy to find that prophecy itself was 
among the means employed. 

The fact that dreams were made the channel 



174 CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCES. 

through which a few of the prophecies were 
uttered, leaves on some minds the impression 
that the prophecies are a collection of clouds 
floating over some dream-land. It was the 
work of the prophets not merely to utter proph- 
ecies which should have an influence when ful- 
filled at a later period, but also to exert an 
influence in their own day in favor of the true 
religion. Though our concern is with fulfill- 
ment, which must be our test of the existence 
of prophecy as a fact of history, yet on account 
of the prejudices with which we may approach 
that subject, it will be well to inquire whether 
in the two leading instances in which dreams 
became the channel of prophecy, there were 
not circumstances aflecting the immediate influ- 
ence of the prophet which determined the use 
of that channel. Joseph and Daniel were wor- 
shipers of Jehovah at idolatrous courts. They 
were also, at their respective periods, the lead- 
ing representatives of the true worship in the 
world, that worship being then at a low ebb. 
Through a superstitious regard for dreams 
already existing at the courts of Egypt and 
Babylon, and on account of the prominence 
given to a class of persons believed to be able 



PROPHECY AS A FACT OF HISTORY. 175 

to interpret dreams, Joseph and Daniel, rep- 
resentatives of the true religion, were raised 
to positions of prominence and influence at 
their respective courts. No use is at present 
to be made of prophecies uttered in this way, 
but these remarks are made on account of the 
influence of association. 

The consideration which should affect our 
feelings toAvards the prophecies more than any 
other, is the relation they sustain to great 
events in the world's history. Allusion has 
been made to the great figure which, in the 
view of unbelievers, is made in the world's 
history by Jesus, who, in his person and in 
the work performed by him, claimed to fulfill 
an important portion of the prophecies. This 
point will be more definitely presented in the 
closing chapter of this course. The associa- 
tion of the prophecies with the destruction of 
idolatry and with the work performed by Jesus, 
places them quite above the range of contempt- 
uous remarks in regard to them. 

In presenting collateral support to the ^N'ew 
Testament history more time will be devoted 
to prophecies pertaining to the Messiah than 
to others; but the fulfillments seen in the 



176 CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCES. 

histories of cities and nations continue to exert 
an influence analogous to the influence which 
built up the expectation of the Messiah — they 
are fulfillments which display the prophetic 
powers of the men who predicted the Messiah. 
Events belonging to three classes, all claimed 
to be fulfillments, demand our attention : those 
which are recorded in the Bible, those recorded 
in profane history, and those which may be 
verified by modern observation. Each of 
these classes of events will receive some atten- 
tion in this chapter. 

"Now in the first year of Cyrus, king of 
Persia, that the word of the Lord by the 
mouth of Jeremiah might be fulfilled, the 
Lord stirred up the spirit of Cyrus, king of 
Persia, that he made a proclamation through- 
out all his kingdom, and put it also in writing, 
saying. Thus saith Cyrus, king of Persia.'^ 

These words introduce the account of those 
very important events which furnish either 
the theme or the suggestion of the greater 
part of the later writings of the Old Testa- 
ment, whether historical or prophetic — the re 
turn of the Jews from Babylon, the rebuilding 
of the temple, the rebuilding of Jerusalem, the 



PROPHECY AS A FACT OF HISTORY. 177 

re-establisliment of the Dation. The temple, 
though repaired in the interval, and the city 
continued down to the destruction by Titus, 
as witnesses which, if they could say nothing 
of the entire accuracy of the books of Ezra 
and ISTehemiah, gave silent testimony to the 
fact of the rebuilding. The events were of 
such character, of such general notoriety, and 
so fully involving the interests of individuals, 
that no nation so anxious as the Jews were in 
regard to the preservation of their history and 
their genealogies could be deceived, or could 
fall into error touching the general statements 
and dates of the account. The prophecy of 
Jeremiah referred to by Ezra was uttered in 
the midst of events of like general notoriety, 
and involving the interests of individuals in a 
still more exciting way, during the siege of 
Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar, at the close of 
which the mass of the people were carried 
away into captivity and the temple and city 
destroyed. Even in our day the matter, the 
style, and the language of the writings made 
^^by the rivers of Babylon" testify to the 
fact of the captivity. Jewish history would 

scarcely be more likely to err in regard to the 
12 



178 CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCES. 

general facts and date of that siege than in 
regard to the events recorded by Ezra. 

In the Jewish economy the prophet was a 
counselor of state. If his position was not 
analogous to that of a cabinet minister, it was 
quite as conspicuous and as intimately con- 
nected with the policy of the government. 
Those chapters of the prophecy of Jeremiah 
which pertain to the siege, the captivity, and 
the restoration are in reality a history of the ut- 
terance of the prophecies, which gives Avith mi- 
nuteness the circumstances in which the utter- 
ances were made, and dwells upon the treatment 
received by the prophet from the hands of those 
in power, who believed his prophecies and his 
counsels to be a hinderance to the prosecution 
of the war. The history of the utterance of 
the particular prophecies referred to by Ezra 
is so interwoven with the history of the siege, 
and the conflict of the policy of Jeremiah with 
that of the princes of Judah was so sharp, 
that it does not appear at all probable, if it is 
possible, that any mistake or fraud existed in 
the time of Ezra in regard to the time w^hen 
the utterances were made. 

About B. C. 600 the armies of Nebuchad- 



PROPHECY AS A FACT OF HISTORY. 179 

nezzar, the most powerful of the Babylonian 
kings, swept over Western Asia, bringing the 
small kingdoms of that region into subjection. 
These subjected kingdoms were continually 
inclined to revolt, and yet unable to free them- 
selves from the yoke of Babylon. 

Jerusalem was three times taken by ISTebu- 
chadnezzar: in the years B. C. 607, 597, and 
586. At the second siege many prominent 
citizens were carried into captivity, including 
the king, Jehoiakin, or Jeconiah, in Avhose 
stead Nebuchadnezzar appointed Zedekiah. 
The revolt into which Zedekiah appears to 
have been pressed by the nobles or princes of 
Judah led to the entire destruction of the city 
and temple and the captivity of the people. 
The hope which inspired this revolt was a re- 
liance on the assistance of Egypt. Jeremiah 
maintained that the only way of safety lay in 
accepting the supremacy of the Chaldeans. 

During the year preceding the first of the 
sieges just mentioned Jeremiah prophesied: 
'' Thus saith the Lord of hosts, Because ye 
have not heard my words, behold I will send 
and take all the families of the north, saith 
the Lord, and Nebuchadnezzar, the king of 



180 CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCES. 

Babylon, my servant, and will bring them 
against this land, and against the inhabitants 
thereof, and against all these nations round 
aboiit, and will utterly destroy them, and make 
them an astonishment, and a hissing and per- 
petual desolations. Moreover I will take from 
them the voice of mirth, and the voice of 
gladness, the voice of the bridegroom, and the 
voice of the bride, the sound of the millstones, 
and the light of the candle. And this whole 
land shall be a desolation, and an astonish- 
ment; and these nations shall serve the king 
of Babylon seventy years. And it shall come 
to pass, when seventy years are accomplished, 
that I will punish the king of Babylon, and 
that nation, saith the Lord, for their iniquity, 
and the land of the Chaldeans, and will make 
it perpetual desolations." 

After the second siege, at which the king 
and prominent citizens, and a part of the fur- 
niture of the temple, were carried away, Jere- 
miah counseled Zedekiah to submit to the 
supremacy of Babylon, saying : " Why will ye 
die, thou and thy people, by the sword, by the 
famine, and by the pestilence?" Then there 
appeared men, apparently encouraged and 



PROPHECY AS A FACT OF HISTORY. 181 

brought forward by the party which relied on 
the assistance of Egypt, who claimed to be 
authorized to proclaim a brighter prospect in 
the immediate future; especially Hananiah, 
who prophesied that wdthin tw^o years the 
king, the captives, and vessels which had been 
taken from the temple, should be restored. 
Jeremiah said, " The Lord hath not sent thee ; 
but thou makest the people to trust in a lie.^^ 
Pretended prophets having also appeared w4th 
like statements among the captives at Baby- 
lon, Jeremiah sent to all the people whom 
Nebuchadnezzar had carried aw^ay a letter, of 
which the following words are parts : 

"Thus saith the Lord of hosts. Build ye 
houses, and dwell in them ; and plant gardens, 
and eat the fruit of them ; . . . and seek 
the peace of the city whither I have caused 
you to be carried away captives, and pray 
unto the Lord for it : for in the peace thereof 
shall ye have peace. . . . Let not your 
prophets and your diviners that be in the 
midst of you deceive you ; neither hearken to 
your dreams which ye cause to be dreamed. 
For they prophesy falsely unto you in my 
name : I have not sent them, saith the Lord. 



182 CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCES. 

For thus saith the Lord, That after seventy- 
years be accomplished at Babylon I will visit 
you, and perform my good word towards you, 
in causing you to return to this place/^ 

The final siege being for a short time raised 
on account of the approach of an Egyptian 
army, Jeremiah attempted to escape out of the 
city, but was met by an officer stationed at the 
gate, who said : " Thou fallest away to the 
Chaldeans. Then said Jeremiah, It is false; 
I fall not away to the Chaldeans.'^ The 
prophet was, however, placed in prison. 

When he had been many days in prison 
the king asked him, secretly : " Is there any 
word from the Lord? And Jeremiah said. 
There is; for, said he, thou shalt be delivered 
into the hand of the king of Babylon. More- 
over Jeremiah said unto King Zedekiah, TVhat 
have I offended against thee, or against thy 
servants, or against this people, that ye have 
put me in prison? Where are now your 
prophets which prophesied unto you, saying. 
The king of Babylon shall not come against 
you, nor against this land?^^ 

The prophecies and the counsels of Jere- 
miah continuing to be of the same tenor, and 



PROPHECY AS A FACT OF HISTORY. 183 

he having in particular said that those who 
should go forth to the Chaldeans would save 
their lives by so doing, " the princes said unto 
the king, ^Ye beseech thee, let this man be 
put to death : for thus he weakeneth the hands 
of the men of war that remain in this city, 
and the hands of all the people, in speaking 
such words unto them." The king granted 
the princes permission to do as they chose 
with Jeremiah, and they .let him down with 
cords into a dungeon; "and in the dungeon 
there was no water, but mire : so Jeremiah sunk 
in the mire." A friend of the prophet bring- 
ing the king word of what had been done, was 
permitted to take a force of thirty men and 
draw him out again and place him in more 
comfortable quarters, but still in confinement. 
While he was confined in the court of the 
prison in the king's house, his cousin from a 
region near Jerusalem came into the prison, 
anxious to get rid of a piece of land. Believ- 
ing the prophecies he had uttered in regard to 
a return at the end of seventy years, Jeremiah 
bought the land, taking evidence of the pur- 
chase, with the formality of the law and the 
customs, and making special provision that 



184 CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCES. 

these evidences should be carefully preserved. 
This transaction was mingled with prophecy. 
"Thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of 
Israel; houses and fields and vineyards shall 
be possessed again in this land.^' "Jeremiah 
abode in the court of the prison until the day 
that Jerusalem was taken: and he was there 
when Jerusalem was taken.^' 

Through both these writings — that which 
gives the circumstances of the utterance of the 
prophecy, and that which gives the facts which 
show the fulfillment — are Jewish, and both 
parts of the Bible, yet the character of the 
writings, and the nature of the circumstances, 
are such as to make on the mind a strong 
impression that the events in both cases, in- 
cluding in the one case the utterance of the 
prophecy, occurred as stated, and at the times 
stated. So far as the reliability of these writings 
may be presumed upon, we have in these events 
evidence of the existence of prophecy. 

Ezra, in introducing the proclamation of 
Cyrus, makes no mention of it as a fulfillment 
of a prophecy by Isaiah, nor of the influence 
of that prophecy in procuring the proclama- 
tion. It is introduced because of its relation 



PROPHECY AS A FACT OF HISTORY. 185 

to the events about to be narrated^ and as the 
natural introduction to them. It was the 
authority under which the Jews might proceed 
to build both temple and city without molesta- 
tion from subordinate officers of the Persian 
Empire; and as such, a few years later, it 
became very important to them, when their 
right to rebuild a city which had before been 
rebellious was called in question. During the 
reign of Darius, search having been made, 
and a record of the proclamation of Cyrus 
having been found among the records of the 
empire, the Jews were not only permitted but 
assisted to complete the temple. Not only is 
there no appearance of intention on the part 
of Ezra to show this relation between prophecy 
and a proclamation, which he may be thought 
to have forged, but during his life-time it 
would not have been prudent to have pub- 
lished a pretended copy of a proclamation 
which in reality had never been issued, nor 
to misrepresent the character of one that had 
been issued; besides, the migration and the 
work which certainly took place, could not 
have taken place without authority in some 
form from the Persian Government, which con- 



186 CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCES. 

trolled all that region. Aside from a tradition 
among the Jews preserved by Josephus, that 
the prophecy was shown to Cyrus, the only 
intimation we have that the one writing had 
any influence in producing the other is derived 
from the fact that both are preserved in the 
Old Testament and may be compared. 

Without bringing together the parallel pas- 
sages of the two writings, I will quote portions 
of the prophecy, and so much of the first of 
Ezra as was taken from the proclamation, when 
the relation of the one writing to the other 
will be apparent: 

^^Thus saith the Lord to his anointed, to 
Cyrus, whose right hand I have holden, to 
subdue nations bjefore him. . . . The labor 
of Egypt, and merchandise of Ethiopia and of 
the Sabeans, men of stature, shall come over 
unto thee, and they shall be thine: they shall 
come after thee; in chains they shall come 
over, and they shall fall down unto thee, they 
shall make supplication unto thee, saying, 
surely God is in thee; and there is none else, 
there is no God. . . . And I will give thee 
the treasures of darkness, and hidden riches 
of secret places, that thou mayst know that I, 



PROPHECY AS A FACT OF HISTORY. 187 

the Lord, which call thee by thy name, am the 
God of Israel. ... I am the Lord, and 
there is none else, there is no God besides me : 
I girded thee, though thou hast not known me.'' 
'^Thus saith the Lord, . . . that saith of 
Cyrus, He is my shepherd, and shall perform 
all my pleasure: even saying to Jerusalem, 
Thou shalt be built: and to the temple, Thy 
foundation shall be laid. ... I have raised 
him up in righteousness, and I will direct all 
his ways : he shall build my city, and he shall 
let go my captives, not for price nor reward, 
said the Lord of hosts.'' 

There are many passages in the prophecy 
corresponding to the facts of the siege and 
overthrow of Babylon, which may have aifected 
the mind of Cyrus, but these seem to have 
suggested the language of the proclamation: 
"Thus saith Cyrus, king of Persia, The Lord 
God of heaven hath given me all the king- 
doms of the earth; and hath charged me to 
build him a house at Jerusalem, which is in 
Judah. Who is there among you of all his 
people? his God be with him, and let him go 
up to Jerusalem, which is in Judah, and build 
the house of the Lord God of Israel (he is the 



188 CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCES. 

God), which is in Jerusalem. And whosoever 
remaineth in any place where he sojourneth, 
let the men of his place help him with silver, 
and with gold, and with goods, and with beasts, 
besides the freewill offering for the house of 
God that is in Jerusalem." 

The writing which appears to have sug- 
gested the language of this proclamation pur- 
ports to have been written by Isaiah, at least 
one hundred and seventy-five years before the 
writing of the proclamation. It is professedly 
prophetic, and its fulfillment is to give it an 
important influence in furthering the work 
which appears to be the leading purpose of 
the Old Testament training — the work of over- 
throwing polytheism and idolatry. In its 
composition are interwoven passages like this: 
'^ That they may know from the rising of the 
sun, and from the west, that there is none 
beside me. I am the Lord, and there is 
none else." 

The following points in regard to these 
writings are important to us ; 

There is great probability, in view of the 
circumstances, and of the manner in which it 
is used by Ezra (whose attention, so far as it 



PROPHECY AS A FACT OF HISTORY. 189 

is given to prophecy at all, appears to be given 
to the falfillment of another prophecy), that 
the proclamation, as we now have it, was is- 
sued by Cyrus. If it was issued by Cyrus, it 
is an indirect, but very practical, expression in 
regard to the prophecy, made by a king and 
commander of marked ability, having unlim- 
ited power over persons and writings in his 
realm, whose character is favorably represented 
in both sacred and profane history, who is the 
person directly addressed, and in whose career, 
in subduing other nations, and in taking Bab- 
ylon, with the manner of its capture, the 
prophecy was to be fulfilled. 

Though no mention is made of Isaiah in 
the proclamation, or in its connection, yet it 
indicates the opinion of Cyrus that the lan- 
guage we now have in Isaiah was, as it pur- 
ported to be, a prophecy uttered at an earlier 
period, and fulfilled in the events of his career. 
He admits the authority of the charge given 
him to re-establish the worship of God at 
Jerusalem. According to the history, which 
proceeds from this introduction, Cyrus restored 
the vessels of gold and silver which Nebu- 
chadnezzar had taken from the temple, 



190 CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCES. 

amounting to ^ve thousand four hundred 
pieces, and entered into the enterprise of the 
Jews with an earnestness which extended its 
influence to later reigns; especially modifying 
that of his son-in-law, Darius, who a few years 
later came to the throne. The proclamation 
both shows the opinion of Cyrus and is itself 
a fulfillment of specifications in the prophecy. 

In pointing out this indication of the opin- 
ion of Cyrus in regard to the age and charac- 
ter of the prophecy, I do not forget that in 
the age of Cyrus the intervention of gods of 
various ranks and orders was believed in upon 
less evidence than would now be required. 
But, when due allowance is made for this fact, 
we can not suppose that Cyrus left unused his 
opportunities for learning the history of the 
prophecy fulfilled in his own career, when on 
its account he reversed the policy pursued 
with other nations. Croesus and his treasures 
were carried in the train of Cyrus from Asia 
Minor to Babylon. 

The force of the argument drawn from 
prophecy will in many cases depend upon the 
assurance felt by the inquirer that the proph- 
ecy was uttered before the event it professes 



PROPHECY AS A FACT OF HISTORY. 191 

to predict. The assurance of this fact is un- 
limited in all those cases in which the fulfill- 
ment is seen from a modern stand-point, and 
in all the fulfillments of Old Testament proph- 
ecies mentioned by New Testament writers. 
We shall soon proceed to prophecies of these 
classes; but in regard to fulfillments seen in 
the events of earlier history, whether sacred 
or profane, the date of the prophecy is in 
some instances the chief question. The effort 
made to show that the book of Daniel, which 
describes the invasion of Western Asia by a 
Grecian army, and the second part of Isaiah — 
from chapter xl to the close — which contains 
the prophecy concerning Cyrus, are of later 
date than they purport to be, is an admission 
of the force of the argument drawn from them 
if they retain the date usually assigned them. 
I will state a few reasons for believing that 
the second part of Isaiah was written before 
the taking of Babylon, and by Isaiah : 

1. The facts already stated in regard to the 
deference of Cyrus for this prophecy. 

2. The second part has no separate inscrip- 
tion, but appears to be included in the general 
title to the prophecies of Isaiah given in the 



192 CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCES. 

first chapter. Though it contains, as do the 
earlier chapters also, prophecies concerning 
other nations and cities than Judah and Jeru- 
salem, this is owing to their relation to these. 

3. The second part sustains the relation to 
the first that should be expected if both were 
written by the same Jewish prophet. So far 
as the predictions touch upon the history of 
the Jews, they pass from the events which 
precede to those which follow the captivity, 
omitting those of the seventy years. Chapter 
xxxix contains a prediction of the carrying 
away to Babylon ; chapter xl introduces a 
prophecy suggested by the restoration. The 
prophecies of Jeremiah and the historical writ- 
ings of Ezra take the same course. 

4. The style of the second part is the style 
of the first part, modified by the subjects 
treated, and perhaps by the time of life at 
which the writing was done. Characteristic 
expressions of the first part occur in the sec- 
ond : also modes of allusion and illustration 
in the two portions resemble each other more 
than could be expected if the writings were by 
different authors. Compare a few of these. 
In the thirteenth chapter it is said : " I have 



PROPHECY AS A FACT OF HISTORY. 193 

commanded my sanctified ones;" sanctified 
being used in the sense of set apart for a spe- 
cial purpose. This is spoken of the nations 
selected for the overthrow of Babylon. In 
the forty-fifth chapter it is said, " Thus saith 
the Lord to his anointed, to Cyrus." Anointed 
is here used in the sense of set apart for a spe- 
cial purpose. This is spoken to the com- 
mander who should lead the nations referred 
to in the other passage. 

In the eleventh chapter are these words : 
" The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, 
and the leopard shall lie down with the kid ; 
and the calf and the young lion and the fat- 
ling together; and a little child shall lead 
them. And the cow and the bear shall feed ; 
their young ones shall lie down together; and 
the lion shall eat straw like the ox. And the 
sucking child shall play on the hole of the 
asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand 
on the cockatrice's den. They shall not hurt 
nor destroy in all my holy mountain." In 
the sixty-fifth chapter are these : " The wolf 
and the lamb shall feed together, and the lion 
shall eat straw like the bullock : and dust 
shall be the serpent's meat. They shall not 
13 



194 CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCES. 

hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain, 
saith the Lord." 

5. Certain expressions of Jeremiah, and his 
manner of treating certain subjects — specially 
the overthrow of Babylon — appear to have been 
suggested by the last part of Isaiah, indicating 
the existence of that writing in his day. 

6. There is no known name of any other 
claimant of the second part of Isaiah, and both 
Jews and Christians have uniformly attributed 
it to the prophet whose name it bears. 

To these should be added the general remark 
that changing the dates of writings of both 
Testaments is a method of attack tried at so 
many points as to show the motive of those 
who use it more plainly than any thing else. 
The writings of both Jews and Christians have 
been carefully preserved by men who were 
deeply interested in their reliability, and yet 
these men are supposed to be entirely in error 
in regard to the history of a large part of those 
writings. 

If passages were taken only from Jeremiah 
and from that part of Isaiah which precedes 
the fortieth chaj^ter to compare with the his- 
tory of Babylon, the evidence of the existence 



PROPHECY AS A FACT OF HISTORY. 195 

of prophecy so furnished would be strong ; but 
there appears to be no reason to think passages 
from the second part of Isaiah less appropriate 
than the others. 

The period of Isaiah's writing is determined 
by the title of his prophecy, " The vision of 
Isaiah, the son of Amoz, which he saw con- 
cerning Judah and Jerusalem in the days of 
Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings 
of Judah;" and by the fact that the history 
of many of the predictions is mingled with 
the history of the government, and of the 
nation in general, in a manner resembling that 
pointed out in the case of the predictions of 
Jeremiah. For instance: Hezekiah's having 
shown the messengers from Babylon his treas- 
ures, leads to the prediction by Isaiah, that the 
treasures laid up by the succession of previous 
kings, as well as the descendants of Hezekiah, 
should be carried to Babylon. The particular 
prophecy of Jeremiah from which passages will 
be taken is dated the fourth year of Hezekiah, 
with a statement of the circumstances of the 
writing. This date places it between the sec- 
ond and the third siege of Babylon by ISFebu- 
chadnezzar. 



196 CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCES. 

Herodotus says : " When Cyrus had reduced 
all the other parts of the continent^ he attacked 
the Assyrians." Babylon was at that time the 
capital of Assyria. Each of the conquered king- 
doms furnished its quota of soldiers to swell 
the army of Cyrus. The host brought before 
Babylon was an assemblage which Cyrus ad- 
dressed, sometimes as Persians and allies, some- 
times as Medes and allies, and sometimes as 
friends and allies. This state of things being 
foreseen gave to the prophecies concerning 
Babylon a feature which is not seen in the 
prophecies concerning other cities. Isaiah xiii 
begins as follows: "The burden of Babylon, 
which Isaiah, the son of Amoz, did see. Lift 
ye up a banner upon the high mountain, exalt 
the voice unto them, shake the hand, that they 
may go into the gates of the nobles. I have 
commanded my sanctified ones, I have called 
my mighty ones for mine anger, even them 
that rejoice in my highness. The noise of a 
multitude in the mountains, like as of a great 
people; a tumultuous noise of the kingdoms 
of nations gathered together : the Lord of hosts 
mustereth the host of the battle. They come 
from a far country, from the end of heaven, 



PROrHECY AS A FACT OF HISTORY. 197 

even the Lord, and the weapons of his indig- 
nation, to destroy the whole land." Isaiah xxi : 
"A grievous vision is declared unto me; the 
treacherous dealer dealeth treacherously, and 
the spoiler spoileth. Go up, O Elam [the an- 
cient name of Persia] ; besiege O Media." The 
Persians, Medes, and allies, were guided into 
Babylon by Gobryas and Gadatas, who had 
deserted from the Babylonians and gone with 
their forces to the besieging army. Jeremiah 
li: "Set ye up a standard in the land, blow 
the trumpet among the nations, prepare the 
nations against her, call together against her 
the kingdoms of Ararat, Minni, and Aschenaz ; 
appoint a captain against her ; cause the horses 
to come up as the rough caterpillars. Prepare 
against her the nations with the kings of the 
Medes, the captains thereof, and the rulers 
thereof, and all the land of his dominion." 

In these passages are descriptions of the 
forces that should besiege Babylon quite differ- 
ent from any thing found in the prophecies of 
other cities, and quite different from indiscrim- 
inate dreaming. The name which the com- 
mander of this host bears in history is given 
in the second part of Isaiah, in passages quoted. 



198 CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCES. 

Xenophon says: "When Cyrus reached 
Babylon, he ranged his whole army round the 
city, and then rode round it himself, with his 
friends, and the principal men of the allies. 
When he had taken a vicAV of the walls, he 
prepared to draw off the army from before the 
city; and a deserter coming off told him that 
they intended to fall upon him when he was 
leading the army away. Tor, as they sur- 
veyed it from the walls, said he, your line 
appeared to them to be but weak.^ ^^ They, 
however, forbore to fight. "When they had 
encamped, Cyrus summoned to him the prin- 
cipal officers, and said, Friends and allies, we 
have taken a view of the city round about, 
and I am unable to see how an enemy can 
take walls of such strength and height by 
assault. But the greater the number of men in 
the city is, so much the sooner [since they do 
not come out to fight] I conceive that they may 
be reduced by famine.^' Isaiah xiii: "There- 
fore shall all hands be faint, and every man^s 
heart shall melt: and they shall be afraid.'' 
Jeremiah 1, 42: "The king of Babylon hath 
heard the report of them, and his hands waxed 
feeble : anguish took hold of him, and pangs 



PROPHECY AS A FACT OF HISTORY. 199 

as of a woman in travail." Jer. li, 30 : " Tlie 
mighty men of Babylon have forborne to fight, 
they have remained in their holds : their might 
hath failed; they became as women." 

The allied army, having effected an en- 
trance, made its attack within the walls of the 
city. " Cyrus sent troops of horse through 
the streets, bidding them kill those that they 
found abroad, and ordering some, who un- 
derstood the Assyrian language, to tell those 
who were in the houses to remain within, and 
to say that if any were found abroad, they 
would be killed." (Xenophon.) Jeremiah li: 
" Surely I will fill thee with men as with cater- 
pillars: and they shall lift up a shout against 
thee." Xenophon: ^^They that were with 
Gobryas joined in the shout with them, as if 
they were revelers themselves, and, marching 
in the shortest way they could, arrived at the 
palace." Jeremiah li : ^^ Thus the slain fall in 
the land of the Chaldeans, and they are thrust 
through in her streets." 

That those who have not read the siege of 
Babylon, or have not given special attention 
to it, may have a more connected view, I will 
make two quotations a little more extended. 



200 CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCES. 

Herodotus: "Having stationed the bulk 
of his army near the passage of the river, 
where it enters Babylon, and again having 
stationed another division beyond the city, 
where the river makes its exit, he gave orders 
to his forces to enter the city as soon as they 
should see the stream fordable. Having thus 
stationed his forces, and given these directions, 
he himself marched away with the ineffective 
part of his army; and having come to the 
lake Cyrus did the same with respect to the 
river and the lake as the queen of the Baby- 
lonians had done; for having diverted the 
river by means of a canal into the lake, which 
was before a swamp, he made the ancient 
channel fordable by the sinking of the river. 
When this took place, the Persians who were 
appointed to that purpose close to the stream 
of the river, which had now subsided to about 
the middle of a man's thigh, entered Babylon 
by this passage. If, however, the Babylonians 
had been aware of it beforehand, or had known 
what Cyrus was about, they would not have 
suffered the Persians to enter the city, but 
would have utterly destroyed them : for, hav- 
ing shut all the little gates that lead down to 



PROPHECY AS A FACT OF HISTORY. 201 

the river, and mounting the walls that extend 
along the banks of the river, they would have 
caught them as in a net — whereas the Persians 
came upon them by surprise. It is related by 
the people who inhabited this city that, by 
reason of its great extent, when they who were 
at the extremities were taken, those of the 
Babylonians whXD inhabited the center knew 
nothing of the capture (for it happened to be 
a festival) ; but they were dancing at the time, 
and enjoying themselves, till they received 
certain information of the truth." 

Xenophon : " The trenches were now dug ; 
and Cyrus, w^hen he heard that there was a 
festival in Babylon, in which all the Babylo- 
nians drank and reveled the whole night, took 
during the time of it a number of men with 
him, and as soon as it was dark opened the 
trenches on the side towards the river. When 
this was done the water ran ofP in the night 
into the trenches, and the bed of the river 
through the city allowed men to walk along 
it." 

I will quote a few passages from the proph- 
ecies which are thought to allude to the facts 
stated in these extracts. Babylon was taken 



202 CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCES. 

during a drunken revel, in which many passed 
from the stupor and sleep of drunkenness to 
the sleep of death. Jeremiah li, 39 : " In 
their heat I will make their feasts, and I will 
make them drunken, that they may rejoice, 
and sleep a perpetual sleep, and not wake." 
57 : "And I will make drunk her princes, and 
her wise men, her captains, and her rulers, 
and her mighty men : and they shall sleep a 
perpetual sleep, and not wake, saith the King, 
whose name is the Lord of hosts." 

Entrance into the city was accomplished 
by diminishing the water in the channel of 
the river. Jeremiah li : "I will dry up her 
sea, and make her springs dry." Isaiah xliv: 
"That saith to the deep. Be dry, and I will 
dry up thy rivers." 

News of the advantage gained by the Per- 
sians did not at once reach the center of the 
city ; and from other portions of the history it 
appears that it did not reach the king till the 
Persians were at the gate of the palace. Jer- 
emiah li, 31 : " One post shall run to meet 
another, and one messenger to meet another, 
to shew the king of Babylon that his city is 
taken at one end." 



PROPHECY AS A FACT OF HISTORY. 203 

Drunkenness doubtless led to both careless- 
ness and indiscretion. The gates from the 
river to the streets were found open. As to 
those of the palace, Xenophon says: "Those 
who attended Gadatas and Gobryas found the 
doors of the palace shut; those who were ap- 
pointed to attack the guards fell upon them 
as they were drinking at a large fire, and dealt 
with them as with enemies. As a great clamor 
and noise ensued, those who were within heard 
the tumult, and as the king ordered them to 
see what was the matter' some of them threw 
open the gates and rushed out. Those who 
were with Gadatas, as soon as they saw the 
gates unclosed, burst in." Isaiah xlv: "And 
I will loose the loins of kings, to open the two 
leaved gates ; and the gates shall not be shut." 

The entire proceeding was a surprise to 
Babylon and its rulers. Jeremiah 1, 24 : "I 
have laid a snare for thee, and thou art also 
taken, O Babylon, and thou wast not aware : 
thou art found, and also caught." 

The prophecies describe the condition to 
which various cities and nations should at 
length come. If the prophecies are the fruits 
of fortune-telling, or dreaming, in its ordinary 



204 CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCES. 

sense, or if the appearance of fulfillment is 
due to some mistake or fraud in regard to the 
dates of the prophecies, then we shall find that 
as we proceed into the field of modern obser- 
vation this appearance of fulfillment will van- 
ish. But we do not so find. We have now 
too nearly reached the limit of the only chap- 
ter I have thought to devote to this part of 
the subject to do justice to this point: but it 
is a truth that as we pass from the facts of 
Bible history to those of profane history, and 
from the facts of profane history to those of 
modern observation, the striking character of 
the fulfillments does not in the least abate. 

Of several prominent cities known to the 
prophets, they say that those cities shall be 
perpetual desolations; not using this word in 
the sense in which it is used in regard to the 
region whose inhabitants were carried to Bab- 
ylon, in which perpetual is limited by the 
period of seventy years definitely specified, 
but accompanying it with the most emphatic 
statement that they shall never again be in- 
habited. The sites of those cities are now 
desolations, and it is highly probable that they 
will ever remain so ; for, whatever course 



PROPHECY AS A FACT OF HISTORY. 205 

commerce between the East Indies and the 
western world may take, there is no probabil- 
ity that it will again be a caravan trade across 
Western Asia ; and without the return of that 
commerce to its ancient course those cities can 
not be rebuilt and sustained. The probability 
that those cities will ever remain desolations 
has more fully manifested itself within the 
last half-century, and since the making of the 
Suez Canal and the projecting of similar work 
on the American isthmus.^ 

The desolate condition of that region of 
country; and of the specified cities, with the 
forsaken prospect before them, is not unim- 
portant to our inquiry. It is a conspicuous 
reminder of the foreknowledge of the prophets. 
And yet for our present purpose, which is to 
determine whether what is called foreknowl- 
edge was or was not knowledge, the feature 
just mentioned is not the most important of 
the features of the prophecies. A distinguish- 
ing characteristic of knowledge, whether it be 
knowledge of things present or of things to 
come, is the ability to discriminate. The 



* This feature of the fulfillment of prophecy is more 
fully shown in the writings of Rev. Albert Barnes. 



206 CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCES. 

suggestion may occur that prophecies of the 
class just mentioned are denunciations poured 
forth by men who felt commissioned to the 
performance of a great work, and irritated by 
the adverse influence of neighboring cities and 
nations — denunciations which the chances of 
war, and changes in the map of civilization 
and the course of commerce, might easily 
fulfill. Taking this possibility into the ac- 
count, and considering that the probability of 
failure was but little greater than the proba- 
bility that fulfillment w^ould occur (which 
would scarcely have been the case if no dis- 
criminations had been made), it is still im- 
portant that the prophecies were conspicu- 
ously right. 

But is there an instance in which a prophet 
accurately hit his mark where there were a 
hundred chances that he Avould miss it? There 
are many such. One will be pointed out in 
this place. 

The description given by Moses of the fate 
that would at length overtake the Jews, in case 
of their disobedience, fits the history of the 
modern Jews, and their present condition, with 
the accuracy of a garment made by a skillful 



PROPHECY AS A FACT OF HISTORY. 207 

workman. It could not be applied at all to 
the history, and the present condition of any 
other nation or race of men. 

"We are just here more especially engaged 
with the fulfillments displayed to modern ob- 
servation ; but the place of Moses in Jewish 
history is so firmly fixed, and the circum- 
stances in which these warnings were given, 
before the Jews were fully established in Pal- 
estine, determine the time of their utterance 
with so much certainty, that some allusion to 
later Bible history will be excused, in order 
that we may have a connected view of these 
prophecies. 

In Deuteronomy iv, there is a prophecy, or 
a warning, of a captivity at a period then in 
the distant future of Jewish history, with a 
promise of restoration on the people's return- 
ing to obedience. It was uttered as the Jews 
were entering the promised land : " When thou 
shalt beget children, and children's children, 
and ye shall have remained long in the land, 
and shall corrupt yourselves, and make a 
graven image, or the likeness of any thing, 
and shall do evil in the sight of the Lord thy 
God, to provoke him to anger, I call heaven 



208 CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCES. 

and earth to witness against you this day, that 
ye shall soon utterly perish from off the land 
whereunto ye go over Jordan to possess it.'' 
During this captivity they should be induced, 
or compelled, to "serve gods, the work of 
men's hands, wood and stone, which neither 
see, nor hear, nor eat, nor smell." Then fol- 
lows the prediction of restoration. This proph- 
ecy is repeated in the thirtieth chapter, with 
a more explicit statement of some of its fea- 
tures. It is also given in Leviticus xxvi. 

Ten hundred years after this we find Nehe- 
miah, at Shushan, far from the land of the 
Hebrews, praying: "Eemember, I beseech 
thee, the word that thou commandedst thy 
servant Moses, saying. If ye transgress, I will 
scatter you abroad among the nations: but if 
ye turn unto me, and keep my commandments, 
and do them ; though there were of you cast 
out unto the uttermost part of the heaven, yet 
will I gather them from thence, and wdll bring 
them unto the place that I have chosen to set 
my name there. . . . O Lord, I beseech 
thee, let now thine ear be attentive to the 
prayer of thy servant, and to the prayer of 
thy servants." It will not be claimed that 



PROPHECY AS A FACT OF HISTORY. 209 

following the advice of Moses was fulfilling 
his prophecy. Attention is merely asked to 
the view Moses appears to have had of the 
events leading up to the situation in which 
the prayer of Nehemiah w^as appropriate. 

The sin and weakness of the Jews men- 
tioned in this prophecy, and from which their 
entire course of special training was designed 
to cure them, was idolatry. The prophecy as 
given in Deuteronomy xxx closes with these 
words: ^^And the Lord thy God will circum- 
cise thine heart, and the heart of thy seed, to 
love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, 
and with all thy soul, that thou may est live." 
The restoration w^as the entrance upon the 
state of things described in the passage quoted 
from Renan, near the close of the third chap- 
ter, in which the Jews stand as martyrs to the 
ideas which their fathers were ready to betray 
at any moment. 

The warnings of Moses dwell upon the dis- 
tress that should be witnessed in the sieges of 
Jewish cities, on account of famine. The his- 
tory of those sieges justifies the most horrid 
features of the outline sketched in the pro- 
phetic warnings. At Samaria "an ass's head 
14 



210 CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCES. 

was sold for fourscore pieces of silver.^^ \Yhen 
Jerusalem was besieged by Nebuchadnezzar, 
"the famine prevailed in the city, and there 
was no bread for the people of the land f and 
when Jerusalem was besieged by the Romans 
this experience was repeated. Deuteronomy 
xxviii : "And thou shalt eat the fruit of thine 
own body, the flesh of thy sons, and of thy 
daughters, which the Lord thy God hath given 
thee, in the siege, and in the straitness, where- 
with thine enemies shall distress thee: so that 
the man that is tender among you, and very 
delicate, his eye shall be evil toward his brother 
and toward the wife of his bosom, and toward 
the remnant of his children which he shall 
leave: so that he will not give to any of them 
of the flesh of his children whom he shall 
eat: because he hath nothing left him in the 
siege, and in the straitness wherewith thine 
enemies shall distress thee in all thy gates. 
The tender and delicate woman among you, 
which would not adventure to set the sole of 
her foot upon the ground for delicateness and 
tenderness, her eye shall be evil toward the 
husband of her bosom, and toward her son, 
and toward her daughter : . . . for she shall eat 



PROPHECY AS A FACT OF HISTORY. 211 

them for want of all things secretly in the 
siege and straitness, wherewith thine enemy- 
shall distress thee in thy gates." 

The shocking details of the siege of Samaria, 
of the siege of Jerusalem by the Chaldeans, 
and of the siege of Jerusalem by the Eomans, 
accord accurately with this prediction, and dis- 
play the feeling which gives its peculiar char- 
acter to this prophecy. Deuteronomy xxviii, 
36 : " The Lord shall bring thee, and the king 
which thou shalt set over thee, unto a nation 
which neither thou nor thy fathers have known ; 
and there shalt thou serve other gods, wood 
and stone." When this was predicted, and for 
about four hundred years afterward, the Jews 
had no king. During the captivity at Babylon 
all the events here predicted became facts of 
history. 

Deuteronomy xxviii, 49 and 68 : " The Lord 
shall bring a nation against thee from far, from 
the end of the earth, as swift as the eagle flieth ; 
a nation whose tongue thou shalt not under- 
stand." "And the Lord shall bring thee into 
Egypt again with ships : and there ye shall be 
sold unto your enemies for bondmen and bond- 
women, and no man shall buy you." The 



212 CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCES. 

Romans made conquests with such rapidity as 
to suggest the flight of the eagle, their stand- 
ard was the eagle, and neither their language, 
nor that of the soldiers gathered to some ex- 
tent in Western Europe, was understood by the 
Jews. At the close of the siege captives were 
carried to Egypt and sold till the market was 
glutted. 

"And ye shall be plucked from oif the land 
whither thou goest to possess it. And the Lord 
shall scatter thee among all people, from one 
end of the earth even unto the other.^^ Ha- 
drian issued a proclamation forbidding any 
Jews to reside in Judea, or even to approach 
its confines. The Jews have not gathered to- 
gether and located themselves as a nation during 
the past eighteen hundred years, but continue 
scattered among all people from one end of 
the earth to the other. Yet they maintain a 
distinct existence. To borrow a figure from 
chemistry, they mix with other nations but do 
not combine; fulfilling the prophecy that they 
should not be "destroyed utterly.'' 

"And among these nations shalt thou find 
no ease, neither shall the sole of thy foot find 
rest," "and thy life shall hang in doubt before 



PROPHECY AS A FACT OF HISTORY. 213 

thee; and thou shalt fear day and night, and 
shalt have none assurance of thy life." It was 
declared that "they should be oppressed and 
crushed alway." Compare this with a frag- 
ment taken from the discussion of the civil 
disabilities of the Jews in England. It had 
been said that the English Jew^s were not En- 
glishmen; that they were a separate people, 
living locally in that island, but living morally 
and politically in communion with their breth- 
ren who are scattered all over the world. " The 
English Jews are, as far as we can see, pre- 
cisely what our government has made them. 
They are precisely what any sect, what any 
class of men treated as they have been treated, 
would have been. If all the red-haired people 
in Europe had, during centuries, been outraged 
and oppressed, banished from this place, im- 
prisoned in that, deprived of their money, 
deprived of their teeth, convicted of the most 
improbable crimes on the feeblest evidence, 
dragged at horses' tails, hanged, tortured, 
burned alive, if, when manners became milder, 
they had still been subject to debasing restric- 
tions and exposed to vulgar insults, locked up 
in particular streets in some countries, pelted 



214 CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCES. 

and ducked by the rabble in others, excluded 
everywhere from magistracies and honors, what 
would be the patriotism of gentlemen with 
red hair?'' (Macaulay's Essay on the Civil 
Disabilities of the Jews.) 

Moses says: "And thou shalt become an 
astonishment, a proverb, and a by-word, among 
all nations whither the Lord shall lead thee." 
Such they certainly have been, and are. It is 
also certain that the language of these several 
predictions can not be applied to any other 
nation or people. Here is a strange career — 
unique in the annals of men. If there was 
no knowledge of this state of things in the 
mind of the prophet, it is a strange coincidence 
that enables us to apply the language of the 
prophecy. It is wonderful that the founder 
of this nation should have been able, three 
thousand years ago, with a few bold strokes 
of the pen, to indicate the outlines of the wind- 
ing path these people are still pursuing. 

If this chapter had not extended beyond 
the average length, I should try to show that 
there is discrimination in the predictions con- 
cerning the condition to which various cities 
should at length arrive; that the description 



PROPHECY AS A FACT OF HISTORY. 215 

of the ruins of Babylon, given in detail, and 
minutely applicable to the state of things 
there, is not applicable to the ruins of Tyre 
or Nineveh, but that each has its appropriate 
description. This, however, must be omitted. 
Before leaving the class of prophecies under 
consideration, I will try to bring together into 
a group the prominent facts in regard to them 
which induce a belief in the existence of 
prophecy as a fact of history. 

1. The great number of the prophecies, 
and the number of the fields in which the 
fulfillments may be traced, render it less prob- 
able that believers are in error in regard to 
the reality of prophecy. 

2. The lives of the prophets, and of those 
who in Bible history have pointed out fulfill- 
ments, indicate an honest and earnest purpose 
to improve their nation in morals and relig- 
ion. This diminishes the probability of fraud 
or error in regard to prophecy. 

3. The Jews were explicitly warned to be- 
ware of false prophets, and in their history 
they had experience with such. They were 
taught to expect, from the prophet^s predic- 
tions whose fulfillment should soon follow, to 



216 CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCES. 

investigate these, and from these to form their 
opinion of each prophet. "With these predic- 
tions were associated those of another class, 
some of which were to be fulfilled in a year 
or two, and others at the end of a considera- 
ble, but specified, time. A notable specimen 
of this class was the prediction of the restora- 
tion to take place at the end of seventy years. 
Predictions of the restoration, with specific 
mention of seventy years as the period of cap- 
tivity, are contained in the prophecies of both 
Isaiah and Jeremiah. This period was spe- 
cially impressed upon the minds of the people 
by the fact that in the time of Jeremiah its 
length was controverted both at Jerusalem and 
at Babylon by prophets who were denounced 
as false. With these were associated prophe- 
cies, mostly delivered by the founder of the 
nation, which sketched the outline of the 
course of events which should make up Jew- 
ish history. "With all these were associated 
prophecies of the Messiah, the fulfillment of 
which could not be seen at all during the 
period of Old Testament history. These peo- 
ple were familiar with the history of the ut- 
terance of the prophecies, and the mode of 



PROPHECY AS A FACT OF HISTORY. 217 

their preservation. The result of this experi- 
ence with prophecy was an implicit confidence 
in it; not the indiiferent assent which men 
give to claims and assertions which but lightly 
touch their interests, but a belief which held 
strong passions and inclinations in check, and 
greatly modified the character of the nation. 

I will recall in this connection two facts 
already mentioned, which show the character 
of this confidence in prophecy. To what was 
said in another chapter of the relation of 
prophecy to the overthrow of polytheism and 
idolatry, I will here add a passage from Isaiah 
xlviii : ^^ I have declared the former things 
from the beginning; and they went forth out 
of my mouth, and I shewed them : I did them 
suddenly, and they came to pass. Because I 
knew that thou art obstinate, and thy neck is 
an iron sinew, and thy brow brass; I have 
even from the beginning declared it to thee; 
before it came to pass I shewed it thee : lest 
thou shouldst say. Mine idol hath done them; 
and my graven image, and my molten image, 
hath commanded them.^^ 

Prophecy divides the honor of overthrow- 
ing idolatry with the other means used; but 



21.8 CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCES. 

I think it may be believed that prophecy, in- 
including the prophetic promises and warnings 
of Moses, was the most efficient of the means 
used. By the use of means among which 
prophecy holds so prominent a place, the peo- 
ple of this nation were borne upward, against 
a powerful current, to a position, religiously, 
quite above that of the surrounding nations. 
Prophecy can only have exerted an influence 
in this work through a deeply seated belief in 
its reality. 

The prophecies concerning the Messiah 
could have no fulfillment during the Old Tes- 
tament period, except as teachers and deliv- 
erers appeared who were looked upon as types 
of the Messiah. The careers of these, how- 
ever, became parts of the prophecy rather than 
of the fulfillment. The expectation of the 
Messiah could only be built upon the fulfill- 
ment of other prophecies. 

That was doubtless an intelligent appeal to 
a belief that really existed in which Jesus 
said, " Search the Scriptures ; for in them ye 
think ye have eternal life : and they are they 
which testify of me.'^ So also was that of 
Paul, which could probably in his day have 



PROPHECY AS A FACT OF HISTORY. 219 

been addressed to any Jew, in high or low 
position, " King Agrippa, believest thou the 
prophets? I know that thou believest." 

4. Cyrus, who sustained a relation to proph- 
ecy so very peculiar, and whose opportunities 
for investigation were good, appears to have 
arrived at a conviction in regard to prophecy 
like that arrived at by the Jews. 

5. The history of the utterance of the 
prophecies is so interwoven with the history 
of the nation as to leave on us the impression 
that the prophecies were delivered when they 
are claimed to have been; and the nature of 
the events mentioned in the Bible by which 
some of them were fulfilled is such that we 
can not doubt their occurrence. 

6. The time of the utterance of the proph- 
ecies being determined as in the case just 
stated, we find that statements of later Greek 
historians, who knew nothing of the prophe- 
cies, show remarkable fulfillments. 

7. The striking character of the fulfillments 
does not abate as we pass from the events of 
Bible history to those of profane history, and 
from the events of profane history to those of 
modern observation. 



220 CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCES. 

Before taking up the prophecies concerning 
the Messiah, a survey of these facts has pro- 
duced in the minds of many a belief like that 
produced in the minds of the Jews before the 
birth of Jesus — a belief that the men who 
predicted the Messiah possessed an ability to 
foretell events. 



MESSIANIC PROPHECIES. 221 



Chapter VII. 

THE MESSIANIC PROPHECIES VIEWED FROM 
A MODERN STAND-POINT. 

IT is thought by some that there are powers 
of the mind by which, if they were suffi- 
ciently developed, men could see future events; 
and they look on the prophecies as the work 
of men in whom these powers were by some 
chance unusually developed. There are Chris- 
tians who hold a similar view, attributing 
prophecy to the unusual development of pow- 
ers which remain dormant in other men; but 
these do not attribute this unusual develop- 
ment to chance. Without expressing an opin- 
ion as to whether prophecy is the result of an 
unusual development, or is not, we may spend 
a moment in considering whether this devel- 
opment, if it existed, should be attributed to 
chance, or to the design of a superior intel- 
ligence. In the course of the remarks here- 
tofore made we have noted facts arranged as 



222 CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCES. 

we might expect them if the Gospels are 
true — arranged as we had no reason to expect 
them if the Gospels are false. Have we not 
here a fact to be added to this list? Why do 
we find the unusual development of these 
powers in this connection, and not to any re- 
markable extent anywhere else? 

Things may be scattered promiscuously, or 
distributed with reference to the accomplish- 
ment of a desired end. The position of the na- 
tive trees, the stones, and the various soils of a 
farm show no design on the part of the farmer ; 
while the position of the fences, stables, planted 
trees, wells, house, and all other improvements 
shows a design on the part of the farmer which 
a visitor can not fail to recognize. These are 
the appliances by which certain desired ends 
are to be accomplished. 

A part of the task undertaken in these 
chapters is to point out the arrangement of 
certain facts of history which appears to shoAv 
design on the part of the Being claimed to be 
the author of Christianity. If the prophecies 
are admitted to be real, we can scarcely doubt 
that they were designed to accomplish certain 
ends. If so much is admitted, no philosophy 



MESSIANIC PROPHECIES. 223 

of the prophecies will help us to evade their 
force as supports to the evidences of Chris- 
tianity. 

The explanation that is probably made in 
the minds of the greatest number of unbe- 
lievers is, that the fulfillments noted by the 
New Testament writers are due to the expec- 
tation of a Messiah — a few facts happening to 
coincide with the prophecies, the imagination 
of the New Testament writers, excited by the 
descriptions given in the prophecies, supplied 
what was needed to give to Jesus the rounded 
character and the incidents of a complete ful- 
fillment; while all other fulfillments, furnish- 
ing collateral support to these, are mere coin- 
cidences. 

This explanation has two prominent ideas, 
previous expectation and accidental coinci- 
dence. It will be appropriate to devote a 
few words to each of these before proceeding 
to the prophecies themselves. 

It is thought that the expectation accounts 
largely for the fulfillments. Will those who 
use this explanation go back with us one step 
farther, and tell us how the expectation came 
to be? In an earlier chapter a few words 



224 CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCES. 

were used to point out the steps by which 
confidence in the prophecies concerning a 
Messiah was gradually built up until a firm 
and wide-spread expectation was the result. 
The association of this with a still more elab- 
orate scheme was mentioned^ and some allu- 
sion was made to the good fi^rtune of the 
lucky founder who fell heir to the fruits of 
both these schemes. Let us now think for a 
moment of the existence of the prophecies 
themselves. 

It is a fact unique in the history of nations 
that, for a period of ten centuries and more, 
Hebrew poets chanted the praises of a person 
who had not yet appeared in their history, but 
who was expected in the future. The heroes 
of earlier periods were the great figures which 
stood out before the imaginations of other 
writers. To the Hebrews, though Moses was 
a great leader, and both he and the later 
prophets were great teachers, and though, as 
they thought, there had been great and glori- 
ous rulers, yet these were all but types and 
shadows of a greater to come. 

If an early English writer had ventured to 
predict the coming of some very extraordinary 



MESSIANIC PROPHECIES. 225 

pei*sonage in the course of later EDglish his- 
tory, that prediction placed on record would be 
somewhat strange ; but if English writers dur- 
ing the next one thousand years had taken up 
the refrain, making additional statements, and 
somewhat in detail, in regard to his character- 
istics and the peculiarities of his influence on 
the condition of mankind in the ages that 
should succeed his appearance, the very exist- 
ence of this body of literature would be pass- 
ing strange. A body of literature analogous 
to this, however, exists in the Old Testament, 
and did exist before the coming of Christ. 
Nothing analogous to it has ever existed any- 
where else. 

With the exception of Strauss, Renan has 
made more use of this expectation theory, in 
accounting for the career of Jesus, than any 
other writer; and yet the singularity of the 
condition of the society in which Jesus ap- 
peared seems to have impressed him. He says : 
"An immense expectation fills every soul. All 
Indo-European antiquity had placed Paradise 
at the beginning; all its poets had wept a 
golden age departed. Israel placed the golden 
age in the future." Why was this? As we 



226 CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCES. 

proceed it may appear that Renan has done 
more and better for us than this, but this is 
quite good. Certainly the facts of history, so 
far as we have facts of history in the time and 
place of the writing of the prophecies, are 
arranged as we might expect to find them if 
the Gospels are true, and the entire religious 
development of the Bible progressed under the 
superintendence of one great mind, as we should 
have no reason to expect to find them if the 
Gospels are false or unreliable. 

The other prominent idea contained in the 
explanation just referred to, accidental coinci- 
dence, should be considered a little more at 
length; for, if it is available at all, it, or 
chance in some form, is needed not only to 
explain the fulfillments, but also the time and 
place of the writing of the prophecies; and 
not only for these purposes, but to explain the 
existence and arrangement of the various facts 
of nature and of history which seem to sup- 
port the claims of Christianity. 

Dice are commonly used to illustrate the 
" theory of chance,'^ or, ^^ doctrine of probabil- 
ities," and they will serve our present purpose ; 
though the most elementary facts of the sub- 



MESSIANIC PROPHECIES. 227 

ject are all we shall need in our illustration. 
A single die is a cube having six sides. If 
this is thrown at random there are equal prob- 
abilities that either of the six sides will be 
presented upward. If I predict which side 
will be presented upward, there are five chances 
that I shall be wrong, and one chance that I 
shall be right. If I place my finger on this 
die and hold it still, I may at the same time 
change the position of another die till it has, 
in succession, presented each one of its six 
sides upward. If I now change the position 
of the die under my finger, and again hold it 
still, while it is so held the second die can be 
placed in any or all of six possible positions. 
This can be done six times, for the first die 
has six sides. And so there are six times six, 
or thirty-six possible positions for these two 
dice. If. these two dice are thrown at random 
there are equal probabilities that either of the 
thirty-six possible positions will be taken. If 
I predict which of these thirty-six positions 
will be taken, there are thirty-five chances that 
I shall be wrong and one chance that I shall 
be right. If I again place my finger on the 
first die, and introduce two other dice, these 



228 CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCES. 

two can be placed in each of thirty-six possi- 
ble positions^ and this can be done six times, 
for the first die has six sides. And so for 
three dice there are six times thirty-six, or two 
hundred and sixteen possible positions. If I 
predict as before, there are two hundred and 
fifteen chances that I shall be Avrong, and one 
chance that I shall be right. At each addition 
of a die the number of the positions that are 
possible is multiplied by six. When four dice 
are used the number of the possible positions 
is twelve hundred and ninety-six. If a gam- 
bler should state his willingness to bet on his 
ability to predict the exact one of the twelve 
hundred and ninety-six positions that would 
be taken, the group about him would see little 
danger in betting. But if the predicted one 
of the twelve hundred and ninety-six positions 
should be taken, few would fail to reach the 
conclusion that the dice were loaded — in other 
words, that his means of knowing the result 
was something different from a calculation of 
chances. In the case of the prophets the 
handling of the dice-cup was usually left to 
later centuries; but they predicted with all 
the assurance of the gambler. Was their 



MESSIANIC PROPHECIES. 229 

means of knowing the result sometliing differ- 
ent from a calculation of chances? "Were the 
coincidences something different from acci- 
dental ones? The result should tell us. 

Think a moment of the hazard there is in 
predicting the events of future centuries. A 
storm at sea could destroy the Spanish Ar- 
mada, built for the conquest of England, but 
could not be foreseen even at the distance of 
a few months. A fragment of rock falling 
into some channel on the Eocky Mountains 
may obstruct the course of a stream which 
through all previous time had flowed toward 
the Atlantic, and set it flow^ing through all 
later time toward the Pacific. So some event 
apparently small in itself, as the discovery of 
a new route, or the discovery of a new gold 
mine, may change the course of commerce, or 
the distribution of population. 

In modern times no career has modified the 
course of events more than the career of Napo- 
leon. And yet Napoleon, in his younger days, 
was moody, melancholy, doubtful of the value 
of life. In one of these moods a small cord, 
of good material, fastened to a rafter above 
and w^ell adjusted at its lower end, might have 



230 CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCES. 

cut short the career of Napoleon; or, a ball 
from the pistol of some rival might have done 
it. Events like these may cut the thread of a 
prophecy right in two. A man with only 
natural sagacity may say that in the future, as 
in the past, there Avill be Alexanders, Caesars, 
and Napoleons, with overreaching ambition 
and military skill; but where shall he place 
his Alexander, his Csesar, and his Napoleon? 

There are also social and religious changes 
which amount to the most radical of revolu- 
tions. If a prophet undertakes to indicate one 
of these revolutions on his map of the future, 
at what point on the earth^s surface shall he 
indicate that this revolution will first set in? 
What date shall he give its beginning? Shall 
he indicate that at this point the stream of 
events will turn to the right or to the left? 
Natural sagacity will not help him to do this 
work even one hundred or two hundred years 
in advance. 

In the course of this chapter there will be 
occasion to refer to a revolution — not a small 
revolution in some corner of the world where 
it might be overlooked — not a revolution so 
like other revolutions that a general and am- 



MESSIANIC PROPHECIES. 231 

biguous description would answer for either 
this or the others — the only revolution of its 
kind — the most radical change in the customs 
of men that has ever taken place — the greatest 
revolution in the history of the world. A 
prophet in the stream of his predictions made 
this turn without the slightest show of hesita- 
tion — turned at the right time — turned in the 
right place — turned in the right direction; and 
mentioned prominent events in the history of 
that period with which the modern student of 
history finds that revolution associated. 

From these illustrations it is doubtless un- 
derstood that an effort will be made to show 
that the fulfillments of the prophecies concern- 
ing the Messiah are so numerous and of such 
kinds that they could not have resulted from 
chance; or, without foreknowledge on the part 
of the prophets. 

In attempting to show this, dependence 
will be placed on those fulfillments which can 
be seen and studied to best advantage from a 
modern stand-point. Many fulfillments were 
noted by the ISTew Testament writers. Their 
statements in regard to fulfillments have just 
the credibility that their statements have in 



232 CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCES. 

regard to miracles, and no more.* But a 
propliecy having been so written that a part 
only of its fulfillment could be seen in the 
period covered by the New Testament writ- 
ings, while the fulfillment of the greater part 
is left to the observation as well as the crit- 
icism of later ages, if the fulfillment of that 
part whose fulfillment can be seen to best ad- 
vantage from a modern stand-point is com- 
plete and impressive, our respect for the state- 
ments made by the New Testament writers 
will be increased. 

That we may keep in view fulfillments of 
both these classes, I will recite briefly some 



* Colonel Ingersoll says, " Their reputation for truth 
and veracity in the neighborhood where they resided 
is wholly unknown to us." This statement, which is a 
repetition of Avhat had been said in substance by oth- 
ers, is not correct. The writings bespeak the character 
of the writers. It is also evident that they had, by 
some means, sufficient standing to carry forward that 
revolution which Eenan pronounces the capital event 
in the history of the world. Besides, the voluntary 
exposure of the early disciples to privation, suffering, 
and death is ample evidence that they believed what 
they preached to others. Still, in the presence of tliis 
sentiment, it will be proper to place greater stress^ 
upon the fulfillment of the prophecies as seen from a 
modern stand-point. 



MESSIANIC PROPHECIES. . 233 

of the fulfillments claimed to have been known 
to the New Testament writers. 

Each of the four evangelists places at or 
near the beginning of his Gospel an account 
of John the Baptist, as the forerunner of 
Christ which according to the prophecies 
should prepare the way before him. He is 
mentioned in the same way by Jesus himself, 
and by Paul. It is evident that the enemies 
of Jesus demanded that he should show the 
fulfillment of prophecy in this respect before 
claiming himself to be the Messiah. "And 
his disciples asked him, saying, Why then say 
the Scribes that Elias must first come? And 
Jesus answered and said unto them, Elias 
truly shall first come, and restore all things. 
But I say unto you that Elias is come al- 
ready, and they knew him not, but have clone 
unto him what they listed. Likewise shall 
also the Son of man suffer of them. Then 
the disciples understood that he spake unto 
them of John the Baptist." 

The prophecies had said that Elijah should 
first come. In Luke's Gospel it is said of 
John, "And he shall go before him in the 
spirit and power of Elias.'' It is throughout 



234 CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCES. 

claimed that John was the Elijah of that day, 
as we say of one who has the characteristics 
of Webster that he is the Webster of the 
present day. Isaiah had spoken of a voice in 
the wilderness crying, ^^ Prepare ye the way 
of the Lord; make straight in the desert a 
highway for our God.'^ 

In Malachi it is said : " Behold I will send 
my messenger, and he shall prepare the way 
before me : and the Lord whom ye seek shall 
suddenly come to his temple.^' In the next 
chapter: "Behold I will send you Elijah the 
prophet before the coming of the great and 
dreadful day of the Lord : and he shall turn 
the heart of the fathers to the children, and 
the heart of the children to their fathers.^^ 

The special work of John the Baptist, as 
represented in the Gospels, was calling the 
people to repentance and reformation of life, 
in preparation for the immediate coming of 
the Messiah. The order of Christ's coming to 
the world is the order in which the consola- 
tions of the Christian religion come to the 
mind of the believer — following repentance, 
and "fruits meet for repentance.'^ The Gos- 
pels give to John the habits of Elijah, as well 



MESSIANIC PROPHECIES. 235 

as the more important characteristics — the 
coarse dress, the simple food, the life in the 
wilderness, as well as the stern rebukes of sin. 

All this is of no force to one who knows 
nothing of the facts; but those to whom the 
writings and the discourses of the New Testa- 
ment were at first addressed must have been 
able either to verify or to refute most of what 
is said of John. His career is represented as 
a very conspicuous as well as peculiar one. 
Jewish readers, at least, must have known 
whether such a person, generally believed by 
the people to have been a prophet, did preach 
the necessity of repentance and reformation, 
in the desert region near Jerusalem; did bap- 
tize in the Jordan, and proclaim the immedi- 
ate coming of the long-expected Messiah ; 
whether multitudes from Jerusalem flocked to 
hear him, or whether these things did not 
happen. The career of John, taken in con- 
nection with the notes of the time and place 
at which the Messiah should appear, was a 
conspicuous mark to those who had opportu- 
nity to know the facts. 

Fulfillments to be seen from a modern 
stand-point will be left for the most part to 



236 CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCES. 

later chapters; but I will ask in this connec- 
tion whether the prophecies do not give to the 
modern student a much more conspicuous fact 
wdth which, in following up the long line of 
events in the world^s history, he will find the 
career of the Messiah associated? 

In the earliest dawn of history the practice 
of offering animals in sacrifice to gods was in 
progress, and had doubtless existed from the 
time when man first recognized his sinfulness 
and perceived his religious wants. Whatever 
chronology we adopt, man, during much more 
than half of the existence of the race to the 
present time, was given to this practice. The 
law of Moses made special provisions for sep- 
arating this practice from idolatry, and per- 
mitting its continuance in that way. Under 
these provisions the offering of sacrifices con- 
tinued through nearly one-half of the period 
that has now elapsed since the time of Moses. 

If any prophet had the sagacity to see that 
in later centuries men would drop this prac- 
tice and never return to it, it must have been 
the very height of presumption on his part if 
he undertook to mark the very time and place 
at which this 2:reatest of revolutions would set 



MESSIANIC PROPHECIES. 237 

in, and mention events with which it would 
be associated. Daniel predicts that the Mes- 
siah shall cause the oblation — that is, the of- 
fering of sacrifices — to cease, and associates 
this event with the destruction of the city of 
Jerusalem and of the temple. So much would 
appear to apply to Jewish sacrifices; and so 
limited, the event is an important fulfillment 
in itself, as well as indication of the place of 
the expected Messiah in history; but Daniel 
predicts that the kingdom which the God of 
heaven should set up, though small in its be- 
ginnings, and extending gradually, would at 
length fill the whole earth. The supposition 
that Messiah's kingdom would maintain the 
same customs and exert the same influence 
wherever it should extend is not extravagant. 
As an inquirer after the truth of the claim 
put forth by Jesus living in his day, would, 
besides applying other tests and estimating 
other indications, trace the succession of events 
which should precede the coming of the Mes- 
siah, and carefully examine the career of John, 
so a modern inquirer, as much interested as 
the older one, noticing DaniePs statement that 
the Messiah shall cause the sacrifice and the 



238 CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCES. 

oblation to cease, and that this event is asso- 
ciated with the Messiah^s death, who ^^ shall 
be cut 0% but not for himself," he places a 
finger of one hand on these statements, and 
with a finger of the other, beginning with the 
present state of things, he traces up the line 
of history to the time and place at which thi? 
great change in the customs of men set in. 
Whatever additional light this inquirer may 
desire he will no longer doubt that the careei 
of Jesus occupied about the place in history 
assigned by the prophet to the Messiah. 

There are many points of interest in DaniePs 
prophecies concerning the Messiah, as: the im- 
probability that a Jew, during the period when 
a strict conformity to the law of Moses was 
thought by the faithful to be all important, 
should predict the cessation of sacrifices, the 
prediction of the succession of kingdoms that 
should precede the Messiah's coming, the pre- 
diction of the time that should elapse from the 
issuing of a certain proclamation, and the man- 
ner in which the heavenly kingdom should 
spread. Comment on these would make this 
episode too long, and would be somewhat for- 
eign to its purpose, which was merely to point 



MESSIANIC PROPHECIES. 239 

out this radical change in the customs of men^ 
which should follow the career of the Messiah^ 
as we now see that it follows the career of 
Jesus. 

The period of the Messiah was also placed 
between certain limits by Haggai, who proph- 
esied to the effect that the Messiah should 
appear during the existence of the second 
temple. 

The place at which the Messiah should ap- 
pear was definitely fixed by the prophet Micah, 
at Bethlehem, a small town about six miles 
from Jerusalem ; and lest another town bear- 
ing the same name should cause some mistake, 
or doubt, the name Ephratah, by which Beth- 
lehem in Judah had been known at an earlier 
day, is added. 

The evangelists state that this prophecy 
was fulfilled, giving the circumstances which 
led to the birth of Jesus at Bethlehem instead 
of Nazareth, the home of Joseph and Mary. 
Not only has it appeared to Strauss, R^nan, 
and other modern critics that this fulfillment 
is improbable, but the contempt for the Naza- 
rene shown during his life may have been in 
part due to the fact that prophecy had fixed 



240 CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCES. 

the birthplace of the Messiah at Bethlehem, 
which would seem to cut off the claims of a 
Nazarene. I am, however, merely reciting ful- 
fillments of which the New Testament writers 
claim to have known. 

The lineage of the Messiah according to the 
prophecies should be, when traced upward: 
The family of David, of the tribe of Judah, 
of the descendants of Abraham, of the race 
of Sliem. All this is claimed to have been 
fulfilled. Only that part which specifies the 
family of David is questioned by modern 
critics. 

When other aspects of the prophecies are 
taken into the account, what stands unques- 
tioned in regard to the lineage of Jesus, and 
the region in which he was unquestionably 
born, are of great importance to the modern 
inquirer after the validity of the claim of Jesus 
to the Messiahship. 

The return of the Jews from Babylon, and 
the rebuilding of the temple and the city of 
Jerusalem, are among the most memorable 
events in Jewish history. The length of time 
that should elapse from the issuing of the 
proclamation to rebuild Jerusalem to the Mes- 



MESSIANIC PROPHECIES. 241 

siah, is definitely stated, but not in terms with 
which we are familiar. At the time of Jesus 
the Hebrew language, though not exclusively 
used, was still in use; and its idioms must 
have been familiar to the people, especially to 
the more scholarly among them. We gather, 
with feelings of interest, such indications as 
we can of the view taken by those people of 
the fitness of the claim of Jesus as to time. 

The expectation on which Strauss and Renan 
have built, and which unquestionably existed, 
was an expectation that the Messiah would ap- 
pear at that time. If it had been an expecta- 
tion that at a later period the Messiah would 
appear, such expectation would have embar- 
rassed, instead of encouraging, the aspirations 
of a claimant. 

The fact that no discussion of this point 
appears in the New Testament would furnish 
us little light, if no other discussions appeared 
there; but the discussions of disputed points 
appear to be given freely. The discussion in 
regard to the forerunner of the Messiah has 
already been mentioned. In the seventh chap- 
ter of John we read : " Others said, this is the 
Christ. But some said, shall Christ come out 
16 



242 CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCES. 

of Galilee? Hath not tlie Scripture said that 
Christ Cometh of the seed of David, and out 
of the town of Bethlehem where David was ?" 
After further sharp discussion, Mcodemus re- 
marked, " Doth our law judge any man before 
it hear him, and know what he doeth? They 
ansAvered and said unto him. Art thou also of 
Galilee? Search and look: for out of Galilee 
ariseth no prophet.^' If there had been dis- 
cussions in regard to the time it does not ap- 
pear that writings of this character would have 
omitted them. There would appear to have 
been occasions when the discussion of this point 
would have been made prominent. AYhen Herod 
demanded of the chief priests and scribes where 
Christ should be born, and was referred to the 
prophecy of Micah, there would have been no 
occasion for anxiety in regard to the place, if 
the time had not been understood to accord 
with prophecy. It is so generally agreed that 
the Jews, and in fact people of neighboring 
nations also, were expecting the Messiah at 
that time, that no lengthy discussion of the 
point is necessary. The existence of this ex- 
pectation gives us the understanding of proph- 
ecy on this point held by the Jews of that day. 



MESSIANIC PROPHECIES. 243 

We shall have a statement of several of the 
prophecies of the fulfillment of which the New 
Testament writers claim to have known, if we 
introduce a passage from Strauss, and one from 
Kenan, in which those writers present the 
prophecies which they believe assisted in the 
construction of the New Testament story. 
These passages are written with the incredu- 
lous air of men who suppose they are account- 
ing for the statements in the New Testament; 
but the New Testament is written with the 
air of men who know whereof they affirm. 

" The hope of the Messiah had existed long 
before the time of Jesus in the minds of the 
people of Israel; and, at that epoch, it had 
attained the highest degree of maturity and 
development. Far from being a hope ill de- 
termined, it had been from the commencement 
definite, and invested with many characters. 
Moses is said to have presaged to his people 
a prophet like to himself — ^ The Lord thy God 
will raise up to thy nation, and to thy broth- 
ers, a prophet like unto ine ;' and that passage 
was, at the time of Jesus, understood as relat- 
ing to the Messiah. Hence the rabbinical 
principle : such as the first redeemer has been, 



244 CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCES. 

the same will be the second redeemer; the 
character of which redeemer has been devel- 
oped according to certain peculiar character- 
istics expected in the Messiah, according to 
the type of Moses. Further, the Messiah was 
to come from the race of David, and occupy 
the throne as a second David; it is therefore 
that the Jews expected, at the time of Jesus, 
that the Messiah would be born, as David, in 
the little town of Bethlehem. In the Mosaic 
passage cited above the supposed Messiah was 
designated as a prophet, and in that quality 
he was as the last and crowning work of the 
prophetic series. Now, the prophets in the 
ancient national legend had been glorified by 
actions and destinies the most extraordinary. 
How should we expect less of the Messiah? 
His life, ought it not to be ornamented by 
anticipations of all that there is of most brill- 
iant and characteristic in the lives of the 
prophets? The popular expectation, would it 
not attribute to him the noblest portion of the 
prophetic character? and like Jesus, the man- 
ifested Messiah would consider his own suf- 
ferings and those of his diciples as a partici- 
pation of the dark side of the lives of these 



MESSIANIC PROPHECIES. 245 

men of God. If Moses and all the prophets 
had prophesied of the Messiah, it was easy for 
the Jews, with their typologic tendency, to 
consider their actions and their doctrines, not 
less than their sentiments and their predic- 
tions, as types of the Messiah. Finally, the 
time of the Messiah was, above all, looked 
forward to as a time of signs and miracles. 
The eyes of the blind w^ere opened, the deaf 
were made to hear, the lame to skip nimbly, 
the tongue of the dumb to praise God. These 
expressions, purely metaphoric, were taken 
literally ; and in that fashion the image of the 
Messiah, before the appearance of Jesus, was 
sketched with more and more of exactness. 
Thus, in many legends respecting Jesus, there 
was no necessity to invent ideas — they were 
already furnished by the image of the Messiah 
living in the hopes of the people — so that 
they were for the most part, after being re- 
handled, transported from the Old Testament, 
when it was only necessary to apply them to 
Jesus, and remodify them to accord completely 
with his personality, character, and doctrine; 
and never, perhaps, was the application more 
easy, since he Avho the first carried some char- 



246 CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCES. 

acteristics to the Old Testament in the annun- 
ciation of Jesus, without doubt, himself be- 
lieved in the reality of his recital; and he 
believed from the following argument: such 
and such a thing belongs to the Messiah ; now 
Jesus was the Messiah ; then such things hap- 
pened to Jesus/' (Strauss.) 

Speaking of the prophets, Renan says: 
" They early announced unbounded hopes, and 
when the nation, the victim in part of their 
impolitic counsels, had been crushed by the 
Assyrian power, they proclaimed that an un- 
limited kingdom was in reserve for them, that 
one day Jerusalem would be the capital of the 
whole world, and that the human race would 
become Jewish. Jerusalem appeared to them 
like a city placed upon the summit of a mount- 
ain towards which all nations must flow, like 
an oracle Avhence the law of the universe must 
emanate, like the center of an ideal realm in 
which the human race, made peaceful by Is- 
rael, should taste again the joys of Eden. 

"Unknown accents already made them- 
selves heard in exaltation of the martyr, and 
in celebration of the power of the ^man of 
sorrows.' Concerning one of those sublime 



MESSIANIC PROPHECIES. 247 

sufferers, who, like Jeremiali, reddened with 
their blood the streets of Jerusalem, an inspired 
one wrote a canticle on the sufferings and the 
triumph of the ^ Servant of the Most High/ 
in which all the prophetic power of the genius 
of Israel seems concentrated. ^ He shall grow 
up before him as a tender plant, and as a root 
out of a dry ground : he hath no form nor 
comeliness ; and when we shall see him, there 
is no beauty that we should desire him. He 
is despised and rejected of men; a man of 
sorrows and acquainted with grief: and we hid 
as it were our faces from him; he was de- 
spised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he 
hath borne our griefs, and carried our sor- 
rows : yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten 
of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded 
for our transgressions, he was bruised for our 
iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was 
upon him ; and with his stripes we are healed. 
All we like sheep have gone astray; we have 
turned every one to his own way; and the 
Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. 
He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he 
opened not his mouth : he is brought as a 
lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before 



248 CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCES. 

her shearer is dumb, so he opened not his 
mouth. He was taken from prison and from 
judgment : and who shall declare his genera- 
tion ? for he was cut off out of the land of the 
living ; for the transgression of my people was 
he stricken. And he made his grave with the 
wicked, and with the rich in his death; be- 
cause he had done no violence, neither was 
any deceit in his mouth. Yet it pleased the 
Lord to bruise him; he hath put him to grief; 
when thou shalt make his soul an offering for 
sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his 
days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall pros- 
per in his hand.' " 

The New Testament writers claimed to 
know that these predictions were fulfilled, so 
far as they were to be fulfilled in their day. 
There is special interest in their statements in 
regard to fulfillments which they witnessed 
in the trial, death, burial, and resurrection 
of Jesus. The events are stated to have 
taken place when Jesus Avas in the hands 
of his enemies. The mock trial, the cruci- 
fixion between two thieves, the casting of lots 
for his garment, the burial in a rich man's 
tomb, are fulfillments too numerous, and fol- 



MESSIANIC PROPHECIES. 249 

lowing each other in too rapid succession^ to 
be the result of chance. 

According to the New Testament statements, 
the fact that the humiliation, suffering, and 
death of the Messiah had been foretold in 
minute detail, together with the resurrection 
of Jesus considered both as a miracle and as 
a fulfillment of prophecy, took a prominent 
place in the argument used immediately aftey 
the death of Jesus, and many thousands of 
Jews, familiar with both the prophecies and the 
events by which they were fulfilled, believed. 

A few days after the disappearance of Jesus 
from the earth, the number of disciples asso- 
ciated and known as such was one hundred 
and twenty. A few days later three thousand 
were added; and but little later there is men- 
tion of five thousand men who believed. Mul- 
titudes both of men and women continued to 
be added. Additions were made daily. Many 
of the priests also were obedient to the faith. 
During the first year after the ascension, the 
preaching of the Gospel appears to have been 
confined to Jerusalem; and this is the New 
Testament statement in regard to its success. 
A few years later on PauPs return to Jerusa- 



250 CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCES. 

lem, he is informed that many thousands of 
Jews believe. The great number of Christians 
which appear a little later^ as the stream of 
Christian events is seen in the general current 
of history, tends to sustain the New Testament 
statements in regard to the rapidity with which 
believers multiplied at Jerusalem. 

The writer of these statements represents 
himself as a companion of Paul in his travels, 
and it appears probable that he had a part in 
many of the scenes described in the book of 
Acts. He claims, in the Gospel written by 
him, to have ^^had perfect understanding of all 
things ^^ pertaining to the Christian movement 
"from the very first." 

These statements give us the triumphs, as 
the statements at the close of the Gospels give 
us the sufferings, of the "man of sorrows." 
The writer of the book of Acts having in his 
"former treatise" made his statement "of all 
that Jesus began both to do and teach," here 
proceeds to state what he continued to do 
through the super natviral assistance given to 
the disciples. His soul having been made an 
offering for sin, the pleasure of the Lord pros- 
pered in his hand. 



MESSIANIC PROPHECIES. 251 



Chapter VIII. 

THE MESSIANIC PROPHECIES VIEWED FROM 
A MODERN STAND-POINT— Continued. 

A BUILDING of note and of general inter- 
est may be viewed from various stand- 
points. One standing quite near it is able to 
remark upon the manner in which the work 
was executed, and may read an inscription in 
small characters on its wall, though he gains 
only an imperfect idea of its outlines. Another 
standing at a greater distance can not decide 
upon the execution of the work, and is unable 
to read the inscription; but he gains a better 
view of the building's dimensions, and from 
what he sees of its outlines gathers more of 
the design of its architect. If we do not carry 
the analogy too far we may say that the early 
disciples were in the position of the jfirst of 
these observers, and that we are in the position 
of the second. 

There was no ground on which the Phari- 



252 CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCES. 

sees contested the claim of Jesus more strenu- 
ously than his manner of observing the Sab- 
bath; several of his miracles being performed 
on that day. "Therefore said some of the 
Pharisees, This man is not of God because he 
keepeth not the Sabbath day.^^ . . . "Then 
again called they the man that was blind, and 
said unto him, Give God the praise: we know 
that this man is a sinner.^^ The man, grateful 
for his sight, and able to hurl back more solid 
argument than the Pharisees could give, pro- 
ceeded to do so. " They reviled him and said," 
" We know that God spake unto Moses : as for 
this fellow we know not from whence he is.'' 
He persisted : " If this man were not of God 
he could do nothing. They answered and said 
unto him, Thou wast altogether born in sins and 
dost thou teach us ? And they cast him out.'' 
At another time when Jesus was in the 
synagogue he met there a man with a withered 
hand and "they watched him, whether he 
would heal him on the Sabbath day; that 
they might accuse him." After the healing, 
he quietly withdrew, while those who followed 
him and were healed were charged that they 
should not make him known. 



MESSIANIC PROPHECIES. 253 

Matthew, on recording this incident, is re- 
minded of a passage in Isaiah in which this 
trait of character in the expected Messiah is 
pointed out: ^^He shall not strive, nor cry; 
neither shall any man hear his voice in the 
streets. A bruised reed shall he not break, 
and smoking flax shall he not quench till he 
send forth judgment unto victory .^^ The meek 
and gentle spirit which should characterize the 
Messiah he recognizes in Jesus. He notes this 
fact. It was all of the fulfillment of this 
prophecy that could be seen from his stand- 
point. In transcribing the passage, however, 
he copies a few of the preceding and a few of 
the following words. From these, if we had 
no copy of the proj^hecy itself, we should be 
sure that it contained predictions of whose ful- 
fillment Matthew had no knowledge, for those 
fulfillments had not then taken place. Turn- 
ing to the forty-second chapter of Isaiah, we 
find that the words w^hose fulfillment Mattheiv 
points out are quite a subordinate feature of 
the prophecy. The sense appears to be as if 
the prophet had said, Though he is so meek 
and gentle that He shall not cry, nor lift up, 
nor cause his voice to be heard in the street, 



254 CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCES. 

yet he shall not fail, nor be discouraged till 
he shall have accomplished certain great ends, 
which are stated in the prophecy. 

I will quote a few verses giving the con- 
nection in which Matthew's quotation stands 
in Isaiah. " Behold my servant whom I up- 
hold : mine elect, in whom my soul delighteth ; 
I have put my Spirit upon him : he shall 
bring forth judgment to the Gentiles. He 
shall not cry, nor lift up, nor cause his voice 
to be heard in the street. A bruised reed 
shall he not break, and smoking flax shall he 
not quench : he shall bring forth judgment 
unto truth. He shall not fail nor be discour- 
aged, till he have set judgment in the earth: 
and the isles shall wait for his law. Thus 
saith God the Lord, he that created the 
heavens, and stretched them out: he that 
spread forth the earth, and that which cometh 
out of it; he that giveth breath unto the 
people upon it, and spirit to them that walk 
therein : I the Lord have called thee in right- 
eousness, and will hold thine hand, and will 
keep thee, and give thee for a covenant of the 
people, for a light of the Gentiles ; I am the 
Lord ; that is my name : and my glory will 



MESSIANIC PROPHECIES. 255 

I not give to another, neither my praise to 
graven images. Behold, the former things are 
come to pass, and new things do I declare : 
before they spring forth I tell you of them. 
Sing unto the Lord a new song, and his praise 
from the end of the earth, ye that go down to 
the sea, and all that is therein; the isles, and 
the inhabitants thereof. Let the wilderness 
and the cities thereof lift up their voice, the 
villages that Kedar doth inhabit: let the in- 
habitants of the rock sing, let them shout 
from the top of the mountains. Let them 
give glory unto the Lord, and declare his 
praise in the islands." 

In the poetic writings of the Old Testa- 
ment, the isles and the islands are distant, 
unknown, and unnamed, but habitable por- 
tions of the earth. The German followers of 
Strauss, the French followers of Renan, and 
the New England radicals — inhabitants of the 
isles, in the sense of this passage — wait for 
the law of our moral and religious duty as 
expounded by Jesus, looking upon him as the 
world^s great religious teacher. These add 
their numbers to those of the unreserved be- 
lievers in fulfilling this prophecy. 



256 CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCES. 

The expression, ^^Ye that go down to the 
sea, . . . the isles, and the inhabitants 
thereof/^ is doubtless an expression sug- 
gested by the exploits of the neighboring 
Phoenicians, who in the time of Isaiah were 
traversing the Mediterranean, and probably 
passing out into the Atlantic, visiting the 
countries of Western Europe. The sense of 
this passage is not different from that of many 
of the predictions concerning the Messiah ; but 
it has been introduced because so little of its 
fulfillment could be seen by the evangelist who 
quoted from it, and so much by us. It may 
on that account be taken as a representative 
of those prophecies which pertain to the king- 
dom to be established by the Messiah ; for the 
growth of that kingdom was to be gradual — 
later generations must witness the germination 
and growth of seed planted by the Messiah. 

The same thought as to the extent of the 
Messiah^s kingdom is expressed in the second 
Psalm, where God is represented as addressing 
his Son : " Ask of me, and I shall give thee 
the heathen for thine inheritance, and the ut- 
termost parts of the earth for thy possession.^' 

It is well to notice the relation of these 



MESSIANIC PROPHECIES. 257 

and similar expressions to the religion enjoined 
upon the Old Testament Jews, and largely- 
sustained by the labors of the prophets them- 
selves. That was a national and, necessarily, 
a local religion. Many of its rites could be 
observed only at the temple in Jerusalem. 
This fact gives its peculiar character to the 
assembly on the day of Pentecost, after the 
death of Jesus, Jews and Jewish proselytes 
being assembled at Jerusalem: "Parthians, 
and Medes, and Elamites, and the dwellers in 
Mesopotamia, and in Judea, and Cappadocia, 
in Pontus and Asia, Phrygia, and Pamphylia, 
in Egypt, and in the parts of Libya about 
Cyrene, and strangers of Rome, Jews and 
proselytes, Cretes and Arabians." 

It is not to be supposed that the prophets 
clearly saw the adaptation of the teachings of 
the Messiah, and the customs of his religion, 
to the wants of all mankind; yet it is clear 
that the predictions are not predictions of a 
gradual expansion of Judaism. They clearly 
point to the coming of a person whose influ- 
ence should extend to all the world. 

A greater embarrassment to any other than 

the true Messiah can scarcely be conceived 
17 



258 CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCES. 

tlian that which was presented by the time 
and manner of the fulfillment required by the 
prophecies. Among them are prophecies of 
whose fulfillment no sound should be heard 
till it could be heard in the march of centuries 
that should pass after a false Messiah would 
have moldered in his grave, or the true would 
have passed from his earthly mission. But 
we may speak of a fulfillment of which the 
early disciples could not speak. In a land 
four thousand miles from the little kingdom 
in which the prophecies. were uttered, and un- 
known to the prophets; in a land in which 
material prosperity reaches every class; a land 
in which freedom is universal to an extent 
that was not approached in the civilizations 
of Greece and Rome, in which fetters are riven 
from both sexes and every race; in a land 
basking in the sunlight of a Christian civili- 
zation, — we proclaim the fulfillment of these 
prophecies. 

In the prophecy of Daniel the kingdom of 
heaven is likened to a stone cut without hands 
from the mountain. The figure is so used as 
to teach that the kingdom would be small in 
its beginning, gradual in its growth, unending 



MESSIANIC PROPHECIES. 259 

in its duration, and universal in its final do- 
minion. Connect with this the fact that only 
peaceful means were to be used in the advance- 
ment of this kindom, that its founder should 
be the " Prince of Peace," that swords should 
be beaten into plowshares, and you have a 
combination of embarrassments at which an 
impostor would "stand in pause where he 
should first begin." 

But Jesus does not hesitate. By prophetic 
parables he gives assurance that these proph- 
ecies shall be fulfilled in their minutest details. 
The kingdom of heaven shall advance from 
its small beginning as the greatest of herbs 
grows from the smallest of seeds ; silently the 
crude material is drawn from earth and air, 
silently it is assimilated, and gradually depos- 
ited. " Another parable spake he unto them : 
The kingdom of heaven is like unto leaven, 
which a woman took and hid in three measures 
of meal, till the whole was leavened." 

The stone that was cut from the mountain 
has rolled part way down the mountain side; 
the plant which sprang from the mustard-seed 
is partly grown; the meal is leavened only in 
part, — but the advance of Christianity has so 



260 CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCES. ' 

accorded with the prophecies as to give us 
confidence of complete fulfiUment. 

" All the world ^s a stage." Seated in our 
respective boxes^ we take into our hands the 
programme which the prophets have given us. 
Through many acts the curtain has risen on 
the scenes in their order as here given. The 
Messiah has come^ his kingdom is spreading 
in accurate accordance with the predictions 
concerning it; and now, as a Christian drops 
a dollar into a missionary collection, he does 
so with confidence, believing that the kingdom 
of Christ will ultimately fill the whole earth. 
And why should he not ? ^^ Behold, the former 
things are come to pass." 

The remainder of this chapter will be de- 
voted to a different phase of prophecy, a 
mingling of prophecy and history brought into 
view by the trial of Stephen. This will bring 
us again into conternplation of the great change 
in the religious customs of men which followed 
the epoch of Jesus. 

The means used to save men from idolatry 
have been dwelt upon at some length. Among 
them was a system of worship adapted to the 
people in the condition they were then in, 



MESSIANIC PROPHECIES. 261 

resembling the worship of the heathen in its 
ceremonious character, but differing from it in 
being free from idolatry. In having its sacred 
place, its costly temple, the JcAvish nation was 
not unlike other nations of antiquity. At 
Thebes, in Upper Egypt, stood great Karnak, 
the most stupendous, though not the most 
beautiful, of ancient temples. The temple of 
Diana, at Ephesus, was accounted one of the 
seven wonders of the world. The majestic 
columns and fine proportions of Grecian tem- 
ples were the pride of Grecian architects, as 
the sculptured gods which adorned them were 
the pride of Grecian artists. The finest and 
most enduring specimen of Roman architecture 
was the Pantheon, devoted to the worship of 
many gods. The Samaritan neighbors of the 
Jews, through reverence inspired by certain 
events recorded in the Old Testament patri- 
archal history, as well as through rivalry, 
erected a temple on Mt. Gerizim, and taught 
that there was where men ought to worship. 

But at the epoch of Jesus a great change 
in the religious customs of men sets in. "And 
as he went out of the temple, one of his dis- 
ciples saith unto him. Master, see what manner 



262 CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCES. 

of stones and what buildings are here ! And 
Jesus answering said unto him, Seest thou 
these great buildings? there shall not be left 
one stone upon another that shall not be 
thrown down.'^ 

During the conversation with the Avoman 
of Samaria at the well, she, led by the insight 
of Jesus into her character and conduct to 
believe him a prophet, proceeded to ask re- 
ligious instruction. " Our fathers,^^ said she, 
" worshiped in this mountain, and ye [that is, 
the Jews] say that in Jerusalem is the place 
where men ought to worship. Jesus saith unto 
her. Woman, believe me, the hour cometh, 
when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor 
yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father." 

It is thought that in Greek philosophy stej)S 
had been taken which facilitated the introduc- 
tion of a pure and high spiritual religion ; but 
in the Bible our attention is chiefly fixed on 
the steps in patriarchal and Jewish history 
which lead to Christ, and the influence which 
Jewish teachings had among their neighbors. 
Jesus alludes to these preparatory steps during 
this same pause at the Avell of Sychar, on 
finding a lively expectation of the Messiah, 



MESSIANIC PROPHECIES. 263 

and a readiness to believe. " Lift up your 
eyes/^ he said to Ms disciples, " and look on the 
fields : for they are white already to harvest. 
And he that reapeth receiveth wages, and 
gathereth fruit unto life eternal : that both he 
that soweth and he that reapeth may rejoice 
together. And herein is that saying true, One 
soweth, and another reapeth. I sent you to reap 
that whereon ye bestowed no labor : other men 
labored, and ye are entered into their labors." 

Whatever line of progress was referred to 
in the expression, ^^ The hour cometh," the 
purport of the language is that by various 
steps, or by gradual growth, men were ap- 
proaching the hour when they would drop the 
ceremonial worship at sacred places, and the 
sacred place would be found in a sincere and 
earnest heart. 

But in the second verse from the one w^e 
have been considering the expression changes, 
and we read, " The hour cometh, mid now is.'^ 
They were standing at the very threshold of 
that change. ^' The hour cometh, and now is, 
when the true worshipers shall worship the 
Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father 
seeketh such to worship him." 



264 CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCES. 

The witnesses who testified against Stephen 
said: "This man ceaseth not to speak blas- 
phemous words against this holy place and 
the law : for we have heard him say, that this 
Jesus of Nazareth shall destroy this place, and 
shall change the customs which Moses deliv- 
ered us." 

It would have been vain, before that coun- 
cil, to repeat the declaration of Jesus that the 
temple should be destroyed; but Stephen 
could have appealed to the prophecy of Dan- 
iel that the Messiah should cause the oifering 
of sacrifices to cease. Whatever Stephen had 
said on the occasions referred to by these wit- 
nesses, his aim in his defense does not appear 
to be so much to show that these things will 
happen as to show that in case they should 
happen the same God might be worshiped in 
connection with other customs. In replying 
to the high - priest's question, "Are these 
things so?'' he proceeded by a rehearsal of 
patriarchal and Jewish history to show, be- 
sides other points, that in other lands, and 
before the establishment of the Mosaic law, 
the same God had been worshiped ; that dur- 
ing the history of their people at least one 



MESSIANIC PROPHECIES. 265 

great departure from previous modes of Avor- 
ship had been made — that made by Moses. 

Moses had been refused and rejected, as 
Jesus then was. " This/^ continued Stephen, 
"is that Moses, which said unto the children 
of Israel, A prophet shall the Lord your God 
raise up unto you of your brethren, like unto 
me; him shall ye hear.'^ The likeness to 
Moses is not probably a resemblance in per- 
sonal appearance, but likeness in office, in the 
relation sustained to God's people, in intimate 
communion with God, and in the work to be 
performed. Whether Stephen correctly inter- 
preted this prophecy or not, it is evident that 
in his view of it the prophecy was fulfilled in 
Jesus, whose career would stand at the close 
of the ceremonial worship of the tabernacle 
and temple as that of Moses had stood at its 
beginning ; that Jesus should lead in this later 
departure from previous customs as Moses had 
led in the earlier. 

Both on account of the manner in which 
Stephen quotes this passage, and because it 
was apparently a standard quotation Avith the 
early disciples, it Avill be Avorth our Avhile to 
turn back and study the connection in Avhich 



266 CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCES. 

this prediction stands in the Old Testament. 
Stephen introduces this quotation in a dis- 
course which gathers the lessons of long peri- 
ods of history^ and of revolutions separated by 
great lapses of time. There is something 
analogous to this in the manner in which the 
prediction at first appeared. Moses, when about 
to die, recounts before the children of Israel 
his experience with them during the forty 
years just closing, restates the law which is to 
be their guide through their existence as a 
nation, warns them of the danger of even in- 
quiring how the nations before them had served 
their gods, advises them in regard to events 
which in certain contingencies might happen 
to them when they had been long in the land; 
and, while taking these extended views into 
the past and into the future, he apparently 
looks forward to the close of the period during 
which his own special instructions should be 
the guide of the people, to the coming of One 
who should occupy a position analogous to the 
position he himself had occupied during the 
transition, the events of which he had just re- 
cited. At least the connection in which we find 
the prediction in Deuteronomy lends force to 



MESSIANIC PROPHECIES. 267 

the view taken by Stephen, and furnishes col- 
lateral support to any other reasons he may 
have had for that view. 

To dwell long upon the Messianic character 
of this passage would divert us from our 
theme — the change in religious customs which 
followed the period of Jesus — but a few words 
may be admitted. Joshua, the leader who 
immediately followed Moses, was not a prophet. 
The passage found no fulfillment in him. The 
note appended to the writings of Moses, and 
now constituting the close of the book of 
Deuteronomy, is by the hand of some later 
Avriter, and is attributed to Ezra, who revised 
the books of the law for the use of the people. 
The period of his writing is later than that 
of all the greater prophets. The note says, 
" And there arose not a prophet since in Israel 
like unto Moses, whom the Lord knew face to 
face.^^ In the view of this writer the passage 
afterward quoted by Stephen could not be ap- 
plied to any prophet previous to his day. 

The prediction first given in the fifteenth 
verse of the eighteenth chapter is repeated in 
the eighteenth verse; and the intervening 
words lead us to apply the prediction to God's 



268 CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCES. 

greatest representative on eartli — the long- 
expected and often foretold Messiah. " No man 
hath seen God at any time/' The mode of 
his existence is incomprehensible to us, and 
our present organization would not probably 
bear a full manifestation of his power and 
glory. I will quote the prediction, with the 
intervening words : 

" The Lord thy God will raise up unto thee 
a prophet from the midst of thee, of thy 
brethren, like unto me; unto him shall ye 
hearken; according to all that thou desiredst 
of the Lord thy God in Horeb in the day of 
the assembly, saying, Let me not hear again 
the voice of the Lord my God, neither let me 
see this great fire any more, that I die not. 
And the Lord said unto me. They have well 
spoken that which they have spoken. I will 
raise them up a prophet from among their 
brethren, like unto thee, and will put my 
words in his mouth; and he shall speak unto 
them all that I shall command him." 

The prophet so announced by Moses w^ould 
have authority to introduce the great change, 
at the threshold of which, in the view of Ste- 
phen, they w^ere then standing. It was, how- 



MESSIANIC PROPHECIES. 269 

ever, only the threshold at which they were 
standing ; and, to merely human sagacity, how 
great the improbability that that threshold 
would ever be past! The glittering dome, at 
sight of which the eye of every Jew returning 
to the appointed feasts brightened with glad- 
ness, was nearly above the head of Stephen as 
he made his defense. The stones and build- 
ings to which the disciples had pointed with 
wondering pride were still there, and the cus- 
toms, now covered with the moss of fifteen 
centuries, seemed no less permanent than they ; 
while the spirit manifested by the council be- 
fore which Stephen was arraigned, and by the 
people who surrounded him, showed them 
ready to keep those buildings in their places, 
or to replace them if they should be thrown 
down. 

Notice a later manifestation of Jewish feel- 
ing on this point. About twenty-seven years 
after the death of Stephen, Paul, who says of 
that earlier scene, "1 also was standing by, 
and consenting unto his death, and kept the 
raiment of them that slew him," was himself 
in the temple. "The Jews which were of Asia, 
when they saw him in the temple, stirred up 



270 CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCES. 

all the people, and laid hands on him, crying 
out, Men of Israel, help: this is the man that 
teacheth all men everywhere against the peo- 
ple, and the law, and this place : and further 
brought Greeks also into the temple, and hath 
polluted this holy place. (For they had seen 
before with him in the city Trophimus an 
Ephesian, whom they supposed that Paul had 
brought into the temple.) And all the city 
was moved, and the people ran together: and 
they took Paul and drew him out of the tem- 
ple: and forthAvith the doors were shut. And 
as they went about to kill him, tidings came 
unto the chief captain of the band, that all 
Jerusalem was in an uproar : who immediately 
took soldiers and centurions, and ran down 
unto them : and when they saw the chief cap- 
tain and the soldiers, they left beating of Paul. 
Then the chief captain came near, and took 
him, and commanded him to be bound with 
two chains: and demanded who he was, and 
what he had done. And some cried one thing, 
some another, among the multitude; and when 
he could not knoAV the certainty for the tumult, 
he commanded him to be carried into the castle. 
And when he came upon the stairs, so it was, 



MESSIANIC PROPHECIES, 271 

that he was borne of the soldiers for the vio- 
lence of the people. For the multitude of the 
people followed after, crying, Away with him/^ 

He was permitted to speak from the stair- 
way; and as he spoke in the Hebrew tongue, 
and in terms to appease their wrath, they list- 
ened till he mentioned his commission to preach 
to the Gentiles, and " then lifted up their voices 
and said, Away with such a fellow from the 
earth: for it is not fit that he should live. 
And they cried out, and cast off their clothes, 
and threw dust into the air.^^ One is reminded 
of the dust that is pawed and tossed by a herd 
of raging cattle. 

It was about two years earlier than this, or, 
about twenty-five years after the death of 
Stephen that the uproar was raised in Ephesus 
by the thought that the temple of the great 
goddess Diana should be despised. It appears 
to me quite appropriate that this tumult about 
a heathen temple should be called to mind 
because the reverence and enthusiasm of neigh- 
boring nations for their sacred places would 
inspire the Jews to perpetuate the temple and 
its customs at Jerusalem, or to re-establish 
them if overthrown. 



272 CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCES. 

To the disciples of Strauss and Renan it 
will be suggested that the ]N"ew Testament 
writers who placed the words which have been 
quoted in the mouths of Jesus and of Stephen, 
and who supplied the accompanying scenery, 
wrote after the destruction of the temple, and 
when there was some more visible ground for 
anticipating the permanent cessation of the 
ancient customs. When this view is given its 
greatest possible scope, which is not very great, 
we shall still believe the various writings of 
the New Testament to have been made when 
the new order of things was in the incipient 
stage of its establishment, with the determined 
opposition of both Jew and pagan before it. 

If the temple is supposed to have been in 
ruins when the New Testament was given its 
tone of strong assurance that the ancient cus- 
toms were permanently passing away, it cer- 
tainly was not in ruins for the first time. For 
a period of seventy years the temple had once 
been in ruins and the people in captivity. A 
writer even after the destruction of the temple, 
before presuming largely on that state of things, 
would turn to the one hundred and thirty- 
seventh Psalm, and read: '^By the rivers of 



MESSIANIC PROPHECIES. 273 

Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, 
when we remembered Zion. We hanged our 
harps upon the willows in the midst thereof: 
for they that carried us away captive required 
of us a song ; and they that wasted us required 
of us mirth, saying. Sing us one of the songs 
of Zion. How shall we sing the Lord^s song 
in a strange land? If I forget thee, O Jeru- 
salem, let my right hand forget her cunning. 
If I do not remember thee, let my tongue 
cleave to the roof of my mouth; if I prefer 
not Jerusalem above my chief joy." 

A New Testament writer depending merely 
on human sagacity might have expected that 
at some day a feeling like this would re-estab- 
lish the ancient customs. Daring much of the 
time since the destruction of the temple the 
scattered Jews have had money enough to buy 
the privilege of re-establishing those customs, 
as they have at present. It is also a fact of 
history, that a Roman emperor having the 
means and the political power to rebuild the 
temple, and wishing to defeat the prophecies 
by taking that step, purposed to rebuild it; 
but it was not rebuilt. 

Whatever may have been the intervening 
18 



274 CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCES. 

causes which prevented the continuance, or the 
re-establishment of the customs which " Moses 
delivered/' after the time of Christ, the Chris- 
tian is accustomed to look directly at what 
appears to him the final cause. The Being 
who established the law of sacrifices and cer- 
emonies, for certain temporary purposes, had 
no farther use for it. The scaffolding which 
had been used in construction was falling 
away, leaving exposed to view the beautiful 
structure known as the Christian religion. 

The modern inquirer into the truth of 
Christianity should see in this great change in 
the customs of men something more than a 
great achievement accomplished by Jesus and 
his followers. It is an achievement which 
completes a scheme that was in existence when 
the Jewish nation was established ; an achieve- 
ment which fulfills prophecies of the Old Tes- 
tament, whose fulfillment Jesus and his dis- 
ciples anticipated when, to human sagacity, 
there was little probability that this revolution 
would be accomplished. The lapse of eighteen 
centuries has made the accomplishment of the 
revolution and the fulfillment of the prophe- 
cies quite evident to us. 



MESSIANIC PROPHECIES. 275 



Chapter IX. 

THE MESSIANIC PROPHECIES VIEWED FROM 
A MODERN STAND-POINT— Continued. 

IN the thirteenth century Marco Polo, a 
Venetian nobleman, traveled into Asia, 
spending many years there, and visiting the 
leading countries of that continent, making a 
considerable stop in Cathay, or China. On 
his return he published a book of wonders, 
containing marvelous accounts of what he had 
seen. He was esteemed a great liar. He 
was urged on his death-bed to retract his 
falsehoods; but he solemnly reaffirmed all his 
statements. As modern Europeans have be- 
come acquainted with those countries, the 
writings of Polo display more and more their 
veracity. If there is any thing still unveri- 
fied by modern observation, it is received on 
account of the veracity which is found to be 
a general characteristic of the book. The 
sketch of Marco Polo in the American Cyclo- 



276 CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCES. 

psedia says, "There is now no doubt that he 
spoke the truth." 

There are in the prophecies so many pre- 
dictions concerning the expected Messiah and 
the result of his advent, which can be verified 
by one who studies the subject from a modern 
stand-point, as to do much towards establish- 
ing the claim of the prophetic writings to the 
character of true prophecy. I do not deem it 
important to dwell upon the fact that during 
the last century there has been a growth of 
respect for the writers of the New Testament 
similar to the growth of respect for the Ve- 
netian traveler, so that the style of most late 
writers is quite different from that of Paine 
and others of his day who denounced those 
writers as liars; but it will be appropriate to 
show that facts which have been made con- 
spicuous by modern writers, and facts which 
are apparent to those who look upon the pres- 
ent situation, are such as to increase our re- 
spect for the New Testament writers, and 
especially for what they say in regard to the 
fulfillment of prophecy in the facts of the life 
of Jesus. 

In the Gospels we have the biographical 



MESSIANIC PROPHECIES. 277 

sketches of surviving friends, but the career 
of Jesus has passed into history. Those great 
features of the Messiah's character and of the 
advance of his kingdom which lie in the 
province of the historian are no less worthy of 
study than the finer lines which are sketched 
by surviving friends. 

It is evident, from passages already quoted 
from the prophecies, that the Messiah was ex- 
pected to be the teacher, not of the Jews only, 
but of all mankind, and the greatest of teach- 
ers. The expectation of the Messiah existing 
at the appearauce of Jesus displayed a feature 
corresponding to the prophecies in this respect. 
The w^oman at the well of Sychar said, "I 
know that Messias cometh, which is called 
Christ; when he is come, he will tell us all 
things.'^ 

The opinion of a great multitude of mod- 
ern waiters concerning Jesus corres2)onds to 
the prophecies as fully as did the expectation 
of the woman at the well. 

To show the exalted character expected in 
the Messiah, and found in Jesus, I will com- 
pare a few words from the Old Testament with 
a few words from' Renan's Life of Jesus and 



278 CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCES. 

other modern writings. The list of quotations 
may be made short, because of those already 
made in the second chapter for a somewhat 
different purpose. In the quoted passages it 
will be apparent that Jesus is looked upon as 
the world^s great religious teacher. A single 
passage from the Old Testament, taken as a 
specimen, will show the conception of an ex- 
alted and quite extraordinary character, which 
constitutes a conspicuous feature of the proph- 
ecies concerning the Messiah. *^ His name 
shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, the 
Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the 
Prince of Peace.^^ 

In his first chapter Eenan says, in sub- 
stance, that the religious revolution inaugu- 
rated by Jesus is the capital event in the his- 
tory of the world. This first chapter, after 
stating that expectation w^as at this time at 
its height in Judea, closes with these words: 
^' These aspirations, incessantly trampled down 
by a hateful reality, at length found their in- 
terpreter in the incomparable man to whom 
the universal conscience has decreed the title 
of Son of God, and that with justice, since he 
caused religion to take a step in advance 



MESSIANIC PROPHECIES. 279 

incomparably greater than any other in the 
past, and probably than any yet to come." 
Commenting on the conversation at Jacobus 
Well, he says : " On the day when he pro- 
nounced these words he was indeed the Son 
of God. He for the first time gave utterance 
to the idea upon which shall rest the edifice 
of the everlasting religion. He founded the 
pure worship, of no age, of no clime, which 
shall be that of all lofty souls to the end of 
time. Not only was his religion, that day, the 
benign religion of humanity, but it was the 
absolute religion ; and if other planets have 
inhabitants endowed with reason and morality 
their religion can not be different from that 
which Jesus proclaimed at Jacob's Well.'' In 
the seventeenth chapter he says, ^^Each of us 
owes him the best that is in himself." In an 
apostrophe which follows the account of the 
crucifixion he says : " For thousands of years 
the world will depend on thee ! Banner of 
our contests, thou shalt be the standard about 
which the hottest battle will be given. A thou- 
sand times more alive, a thousand times more 
beloved, since thy death than during thy pass- 
age here below, thou shalt become the corner- 



280 CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCES. 

stone of humanity so entirely that to tear 
thy name from this world would be to rend it 
to its foundations. Between thee and God 
there will no longer be any distinction/' 
From the concluding chapter, entitled, " Es- 
sential Character of the Work of Jesus," I 
will select a few expressions. ^^The founda- 
tion of the true religion is indeed his work. 
After him, there is nothing more but to de- 
velop and fructify.^' " Jesus will remain in 
religion the creator of its pure sentiment; the 
Sermon on the Mount will never be surpassed. 
No revolution will lead us not to join in re- 
ligion the grand intellectual and moral line at 
the head of which beams the name of Jesus. 
In this sense we are Christians, even though 
we separate upon almost all points from the 
Christian tradition Avhich has preceded us.'' 
" This sublime person, who each day still pre- 
sides over the destinies of the world, we may 
call divine, not in the sense that Jesus absorbed 
all divinity or was equal to it (to employ the 
scholastic expression), but in this sense that 
Jesus is that individual who has caused his 
species to make the greatest advance towards 
the divine. Humanity as a whole presents an 



MESSIANIC PROPHECIES. 281 

assemblage of beings, low, selfish, superior to 
the animal only in this that their selfishness is 
more premeditated. But, in the midst of this 
uniform vulgarity, pillars rise towards heaven 
and attest a more noble destiny. Jesus is the 
highest of these pillars which show to man 
whence he came and whither he should tend. 
In him is condensed all that is good and lofty 
in our nature." The closing words of the 
book are : " But whatever may be the sur- 
prises of the future, Jesus will never be sur- 
passed. His worship will grow young without 
ceasing; his legend will call forth tears with- 
out end; his sufferings will melt the noblest 
hearts; all ages will proclaim that among the 
sons of men there is none born greater than 
Jesus." 

Though Strauss is much more reserved than 
Renan in the expression of his admiration, his 
conception of Jesus is far from being the con- 
ception of an ordinary person. His conception 
of Jesus is that of a real and very extraordi- 
nary character, whose career constitutes the 
nucleus of a cloud of myths which have gath- 
ered about it. 

After inquiring what Jesus may have gained 



282 CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCES. 

from the various sects of his day, and finding 
in these contrasts rather than resemblances to 
his teachings, Strauss says : " If Ave suppose 
him to have been indebted to the Essenes, to 
the Alexandrians, and to every school and 
doctrine ever known, for his opinions, still we 
can not find in any thing that could thus have 
been imparted to him, any thing which can 
be imagined sufficient to lead to a revolution 
in the world: the cause of this grand work 
could only be found in the depths of his own 
soul." 

The following extracts from the writings 
of J. Stuart Mill are made by President W. D. 
Killen, of the Presbyterian College of Belfast, 
in an article in Princeton Review : 

"About the life and sayings of Jesus there 
is a stamp of personal originality combined 
-,vith profundity of insight, w^iich . . . must 
place the prophet of Nazareth, even in the 
estimation of those w^ho have no belief in his 
inspiration, in the very first rank of the men 
of sublime genius of whom our species can 
boast. When this genius is combined with 
the qualities of probably the greatest moral 
reformer and martyr to that mission^ who ever 



MESSIANIC PROPHECIES. 283 

existed upon earth, religion can not be said to 
have made a bad choice in pitching on this 
man as the ideal representative and guide of 
humanity; nor, even now, would it be easy, 
even for an unbeliever, to find a better trans- 
lation of the rule of virtue from the abstract 
into the concrete than to endeavor so to live 
that Christ would approve our life." "It re- 
mains a possibility that Christ actually was 
what he supposed himself to be — ... a man 
charged with a special, express, and unique 
commission from God to lead mankind to truth 
and virtue." 

Passages displaying a high appreciation of 
the character and work of Jesus, and giving 
him in fact the first position among religious 
teachers, are not found in the works of quite 
late writers merely; but Christian writers of 
an earlier day were able to collect similar pas- 
sages from writers like Rousseau. In fact, in 
any age when the character and work of Jesus 
have been carefully and candidly studied, they 
have called forth expressions of high appre- 
ciation. 

The prophets in pointing their readers for- 
ward to the Messiah, and the writers just 



284 CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCES. 

quoted in pointing theirs backward to Jesus, 
alike point to a conspicuous figure in the relig- 
ious world rising abruptly from the ordinary 
level of intervening characters as a volcanic 
peak may in some generally level region be 
seen in the distance to rear its head a thou- 
sand feet above the gently undulating surface 
of the surrounding country. 

An imbecile can not assume the part of a 
man of sense. No more can an ordinary man 
apply to himself the extraordinary language 
of the prophecies. And yet in the light of 
what has been written by Strauss, Renan, Mill, 
and Parker, those assumptions of superiority 
which must needs have been made to meet the 
requirements of the prophecies, and which 
would have made an ordinary man ridiculous, 
appear to rest like a crown of glory on the 
brow of Jesus. 

In a sense which is very important to the 
modern inquirer Strauss, Renan, and perhaps 
all who have given serious attention to the 
subject, believe that Jesus was born of the 
right lineage, at the right time, and in the 
right place to meet the requirements of the 
prophecies — so born as to profit by their exist- 



MESSIANIC PROPHECIES. 285 

ence. The probabilities are strongly against 
the thought that a pretender, or any other 
than the true Messiah, happening to be born 
of the right lineage, happening to be born at 
the right time, happening to be born at the 
right place, happened also to possess these 
transcendent powers. The improbability ap- 
pears still more glaring when it is remembered 
that this fortunate pretender must also be 
looked upon as falling heir to the fruits of 
that great scheme by which idolatry was elim- 
inated, and heir to the fruits of that other and 
parallel scheme by which the expectation of 
the Messiah had been established, and that so, 
by mere good fortune, all things necessary for 
the accomplishment of his mission and the 
gratification of his ambition were at hand. 

The prophets having attributed to the Mes- 
siah this exalted and very extraordinary char- 
acter as the teacher of all mankind, there was, 
to state the case moderately, not more than 
one chance in ten that any religious teacher 
would appear, so notably in advance of others 
as to fulfill their predictions; and yet Jesus, 
who claimed to be the Messiah, did, according 
to the estimate of these writers, occupy this 



286 



CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCES. 



eminent position as the world's religious teacher, 
has for eighteen centuries continued to hold it 
without successful competition, and was the 
founder of that religion which is adapted to 
the wants of all mankind. * 

The character and work of Jesus having 
so fully met the expectations of the prophets, 



"* We give these estimated ratios in the form of a table : 



The chances that no religious 
teacher would appear who 
would fulfill the exalted ex- 
pectations of the prophets 9 

The chances that the religious 
teacher, having the required 
character to meet the expecta- 
tions of the prophets, would 
not have appeared at a time 
so satisfactory t'liat no trace 
of any discussion of this point 
should comedown to us 2 

The chances that the birth of 
this teacher would not coin- 
cide with the period of the 
peculiar state of society whicli 
existed at the time and place 
of Jesus, and that we should 
not be able to trace schemes 
by which this state of society 
was produced 9 

Tlie chances that this teacher, 
if found at all, would be found 
.outside of Palestine 50 

The cliances that fhis teacher, 
if found at all, would not be 
found in tlie tribe of Judah...50 

Multiplying, 50 X 50 X 9 X2 X 9 = 
405.000. 



Tlje chance that a religious 
teacher would appear who 
would fulfill the exalted ex- 
pectations of the prophets... 1 

The cliance that the religious 
teacher, having the required 
character to meet the expecta- 
tions of the prophets, would 
have appeared at a lime so 
satisfactory that no trace of 
any discussion of this point 
should come down to us 1 

The chance that the birth of 
this teaclier would coincide 
with the period of tlie peculiar 
state of society which existed 
at tlie time and i>lace of Jesus, 
and tliat we should be able to 
trace schemes by which tins 
state of society was produced. 1 

The chance that this teacher, if 
fouiul at all, would be found 
in Palestine 1 

The cliance that this teacher, if 
found at all, would be found 
in tlie tribe of Judah 1 

Multiplying here, as before, tlie 
result is only 1. 



MESSIANIC PROPHECIES. 287 

let us inquire what other points in regard to 
him appear to be established. 

If a religious teacher having the required 
character could have been expected, there 
was not more than one chance in three that 
the time of his appearing would so accord 
with the expectations of men familiar with the 
idioms of the prophecies that no trace of any 
discussion upon this point should come down 
to us ; and yet the jSTew Testament, which ap- 
pears to give with entire freedom the discus- 
sion of many points, and the presentation of 
many objections, brings us no trace of any 
discussion upon this point. I think it not 
amiss, therefore, to place this moderate ratio 
in the table. 

The peculiar state of society at the time 
and place of Jesus, with reference to idolatry 
and the expectation of the Messiah, has been 
dwelt upon at some length. The chance that 
the birth of the workPs religious teacher 
would coincide with the period at which this 
state of things existed, and that Ave should 
also be able to trace the outlines of carefully 
devised and laboriously worked schemes by 
which this preparation of soil was effected, is 



288 CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCES. 

certainly not greater than one in ten. I do 
not, therefore, hesitate to place this ratio in 
the table. Though not a matter of prophecy, 
this coincidence was among the good hits 
which made the fortune of Jesus, if he was 
not the true Messiah. 

If a career of such pre-eminence as to cor* 
respond with the prophecies has been found in 
the annals of any tract of country, in what 
tract was it probably found? According to 
the writers I have quoted, a career of such 
pre-eminence is found only in the annals of a 
little province lying at the east end of the 
Mediterranean Sea ; but the chances are equally 
favorable in any tract, of equal area, lying in 
those portions of the world in which the same 
enlightenment exists, or has existed, with. as 
great displays of genius — wherever artists, 
writers, statesmen, inventors, scientists, or other 
men of eminence have appeared. Why should 
not the world^s religious teacher have appeared 
in Egypt, Greece, or Rome? Why not in 
Germany, France, or England? ISTor should 
we pass slightingly by New England, Avith her 
transcendentalism, her Radical Club, and her 
Free Religious Association; and if there is a 



MESSIANIC PROPHECIES. 289 

prophet nearer home he shall not in this in- 
stance be without honor in his own country. 
Great is Chicago, with her Philosophical As- 
sociation ! "Why should not the world^s relig- 
ious teacher have appeared in Chicago ? And 
if not in Chicago, then why not in Illinois? 
In the throwing of these dice all these enlight- 
ened regions seem to have been so loaded as 
to fall wrong side up. While Strauss, Renan, 
Mill, and the New England radicals discourse 
of the pre-eminent teacher, the little province 
at the east end of the Mediterranean alone 
stands before us. 

I shall not, I think, be understood to ex- 
press surprise that a Jew, in predicting the 
birthplace of the great teacher of mankind, 
on whose law the inhabitants of the isles 
should wait, should fix on some point in Pal- 
estine. A Jew would certainly fix upon a 
point in that region if he should fix upon any. 
The point I wish to illustrate is the very 
great probability that, having fixed the birth- 
place of the great teacher in Palestine, the 
Jew would be w^rong ; because of the greater 
probability that the great teacher, if he should 

appear at all, would appear in some part of 
19 



290 CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCES. 

those great tracts of enlightenment which in- 
clude Greece, Rome, Phoenicia, Egypt, Ger- 
many, France, England, all of Western Europe, 
and the United States and Canada. 

The wonder is that modern writers, in 
pointing out " the incomparable man to whom 
the universal conscience has decreed the title 
of Son of God, and that with justice, since he 
caused religion to take a step in advance in- 
comparably greater than any other in the past, 
and probably than any yet to come,^^ also fix 
our attention on Palestine. 

Among historians of the Roman Empire 
and writers of the life of Christ there is no 
question as to the region in which Christianity 
originated, and in which the career of Jesus 
was witnessed; but the description given by 
Eenan of the effect produced by an examina- 
tion of that region is so graphic as to furnish 
a temptation to introduce it. " I have,^^ says 
he, "traveled through the evangelical province 
in every direction ; I have visited Jerusalem, 
Hebron, and Samaria ; scarcely any locality 
important in the history of Jesus has escaped 
me. All this history, which at a distance 
seems floating in the clouds of an unreal 



MESSIANIC PROPHECIES. 291 

world, thus assumed a body, a solidity, which 
astonished me. The striking accord of the 
texts and the places, the wonderful harmony 
of the evangelical ideal with the landscape 
which -served as its setting, were to me as a 
revelation. I had before my eyes a fifth 
Gospel, torn but still legible, and henceforth, 
through the narratives of Matthew and Mark, 
instead of an abstract being which one would 
say had never existed, I saw a wonderful hu- 
man form live and move." 

The prophecy of Micah was mentioned in 
an earlier chapter, with the remark that it 
definitely fixed the place at which the Messiah 
should appear. I will here add that the ref- 
erence to the Messiah is equally certain; for 
the language is like that in which the expected 
Messiah is usually mentioned in the prophe- 
cies, and is applicable to no one else. I will 
merely quote it, without farther comment. 
" Out of thee shall he come forth unto me 
that is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings 
forth have been from of old, from everlasting." 

If I may represent the little region in 
which it is quite certain that Jesus was born, 
in which he died, and in which all his life 



292 CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCES. 

was passed, by a target used in artillery prac- 
tice, and the little town, whether it be Beth- 
lehem or Nazareth, at which Jesus was in re- 
ality born, by a small circle drawn on the 
target, I shall say that Micah saw that small 
circle on the target, at a distance represented 
by seven centuries, and carefully aimed a shot 
at it. Matthew and Luke, standing by the 
target, tell us that the ball struck the little 
spot inclosed in the circle. Strauss and Re- 
nan, standing at a distance represented by 
eighteen centuries, doubt whether the shot was 
quite so successful; and especially they seem 
to see, from their stand-point, a little spot just 
outside the circle. It appears to them much 
more probable that the ball struck there. 
Whatever may be the truth in regard to this 
question, Strauss and Renan are prepared to 
face the world with the assertion that the ball 
went crashing through the target. If Mat- 
thew and Luke are to be relied upon, the aim 
was entirely accurate; if Strauss and Reuan 
are our witnesses, the aim was taken by a 
gunner of no mean skill. 

On a map representing the north temper- 
ate zone one may shade the region which in- 



MESSIANIC PROPHECIES. 293 

eludes every locality mentioned in the life of 
Jesus; and with a pencil of another color he 
may shade all those regions which, so far as 
human sagacity can determine, would, at some 
time since the prophecies were written, have 
been as likely to produce the extraordinary 
teacher described in the passages quoted as 
the region shaded at first. He will then see 
that the contrast between the two shadings as to 
extent of territory covered is very great. While 
the one covers an area not much greater than 
the smallest of the States of this Union, the 
other covers important portions of great con- 
tinents. He will see that if the prophet va- 
ried from absolute accuracy, which can not be 
proved, his variation was confined within cer- 
tain limits which are quite narrow. The 
smaller area represents the chances that mod- 
ern observation would confirm the statements 
of Matthew and Luke to the extent to which 
we find those statements confirmed. The 
larger area represents the chances that modern 
observation would not confirm the statements 
of Matthew and Luke to the extent to which 
we find those statements confirmed. If the 
larger area is fifty times as large as the 



294 CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCES. 

smaller, then there are fifty chaDces that a 
teacher whose description meets the require- 
ments of the prophecies, as that of Jesus does, 
would be found outside of Palestine to one 
that he would be found in it. 

The lineage of Jesus is claimed to accord 
throughout with the requirements of the proph- 
ecies. Strauss laboriously argues, and Renan 
iirmly asserts, that Jesus was not, probably, of 
the family of David. Let this stand with the 
question as to whether Jesus was born at Beth- 
lehem or at Nazareth. It is a point on which 
the evangelists have made statements which 
we can neither positively verify nor deny. 
That Jesus was of the race of Shem, of the 
descendants of Abraham, and of the tribe of 
Judah, is not questioned. 

If a career of such pre-eminence as to meet 
the requirements of the prophecies has been 
found, in what tribe of men was it probably 
found? According to the writers quoted the 
only career of such pre-eminence is the career 
of a man who was certainly a descendant of 
Abraham, and in all probability of the tribe 
of Judah; but there have certainly been a 
hundred other tribes or races of men, whether 



MESSIANIC PROPHECIES. 295 

their genealogies have been kept or not, which, 
so far as human sagacity can determine, were 
as likely to produce that pre-eminent career 
as the tribe of Judah. That the estimate may 
be moderate w^e shall say that there have been 
fifty such tribes or races of men. The prob- 
ability being as great that this pre-eminent 
career would be found in any one of the others 
as in the tribe of Judah, there are fifty chances 
that that career would be found in some other 
race to one that it would be found in the tribe 
of Judah. 

Using, for the present, the estimates which 
have been made as we have passed along, the 
chances that the claim of Jesus to the Mes- 
siahship would not be confirmed by modern 
observation and study, to the extent to which 
w^e find it confirmed, are 405,000, to 1 that it 
would be so confirmed. 

No other man so largely dependent upon 
good fortune for the gratification of his ambi- 
tion was ever so successful. If the native 
powers of Jesus had not been altogether pre- 
eminent, his claim to the Messiahship would 
have been altogether futile ; having those pow- 
er.«, if his birth had not been at a time that 



296 CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCES. 

accorded with the interpretation given by his 
countrymen to the prophecies, his aspirations 
would have been greatly embarrassed; if he 
had not been born at the period of the peculiar 
state of society which existed in his day, he 
could not have performed a work which would 
have met the expectations of the prophets in 
regard to the results of the Messiah's mission; 
if he had not been born in Palestine even his 
disciples could not have claimed that he was 
born in Bethlehem ; if he had belonged to 
any other tribe or race of men than the tribe 
of Judah, of the descendants of Abraham, the 
prophecies in regard to those descendants, and 
that tribe would have been an impassable bar- 
rier to his claim; besides, even his disciples 
could not have claimed that he belonged to 
the family of David. 

In arguments upon moral questions figures 
should be looked upon as means of suggestion 
and illustration rather than means of proof. 
I do not expect others to adopt the exact 
figures I have placed in the table; I merely 
hope that when those who study the subject 
shall have made their own estimates, and 
worked the problem for themselves, they will 



MESSIANIC PROPHECIES. 297 

reach the conclusion stated in an earlier chap- 
ter ; In adopting that view of the life of Jesus 
and the origin of Christianity of Avhich Eenan 
is a prominent representative, and which is 
largely held by those who reject the super- 
natural, enough must be attributed to good 
fortune to outrage our ideas of probability, 
and to render that view quite untenable. 

Either Jesus was not the incomparable man 
(Renan), in the depths of whose own soul the 
cause of this grand work could only be found 
(Strauss) ; the greatest moral reformer, and 
martyr to that mission who ever existed upon 
earth (Mill) ; the way, the truth, and the life 
(Parker); the greatest of the purely spiritual 
teachers of the past (Toledo Index), whose 
leadership is the noblest of all leaderships 
(Colonel Higginson), who did all that it was 
possible for any soul to do at one epoch (Pro- 
fessor Everett), and who answers to our needs 
because he is too deep for us (Alcott), or he 
is very Christ, the Son of God, the Savior 
of men.* 



* In the second chapter admissions, or statements, 
in regard to the high character of Clirist and Chris- 
tianity are introduced to show that the claims of Chris- 



298 CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCES. 

Before leaving the subject I will add a few 
words concerning the line of argument that 
has been pursued. Though some statements 
may have been made which are at times ques- 
tioned^ the stress of the argument has been 
placed upon facts which one who has followed 
it could verify for himself, from his stand- 
point, and to a considerable extent upon facts 
which have been made conspicuous by writers 
who reject the supernatural. 

On account of the deference for science. 



tianity are worthy of investigation. In the ninth chap- 
ter they are used to show the fulfillment of prophecy. 
In this note I shall be pleased to call attention to 
another fact made conspicuous by them, and of interest 
on account of its bearing on the probability of the 
truth of the New Testament waitings — the message is 
worthy of the signs which are claimed to have accom- 
panied it. 

"A miracle may be defined to be a plain and man- 
ifest exercise by a man, or by God at the call of a 
man, of those powers which belong only to the Creator 
and Lord of nature; and this for the declared object 
of attesting that a divine mission is given to that man." 
(Smith's Bible Dictionary.) 

As quoted in Alexander's Evidences, Hume says : 
'' Suppose all authors in all languages agree, that from 
the first of January, IGOO, there was a total darkness 
all over the earth for eight days ; suppose that the tra. 
dition of this event is still strong and lively among the 



MESSIANIC PROPHECIES. 299 

amounting to a mild superstition towards what- 
ever bears that name, it will be appropriate to 
call attention to the use made of circumstan- 
tial evidences in the natural sciences. A few 
years ago Professor Huxley presented his view 
of the evidences in favor of evolution, in a 
course of three lectures, delivered in New York. 
As the nature of his discussion would take him, 
at the first step, quite beyond all human testi- 
mony, he introduces the following remarks: 
" Evidence as to the occurrence of any fact 



people ; that all travelers bring us accounts of the same 
tradition, etc. It is evident that our philosophers 
ought to receive it for certain." If this should be 
presented as a miracle, the case would be quite diflfer- 
ent with our Christians. They would still look for 
some sense in the statement — some reason why the 
miracle was performed. The occurrence would be 
looked upon by them as a phenomenon of nature, un- 
explained as yet, but capable of explanation when the 
facts of force and matter shall be sufficiently understood. 
Colonel Ingersoll calls for a miracle, and asserts his 
readiness to believe when one is seen. A Christian 
has no special interest in a "wonder," or a strange 
event, severed from the message, and the circumstances 
which alone could give it the character of a miracle. A 
miracle, in his understanding of the term, could not 
occur without a new revelation. The fulfillment of 
prophecies contained in the Old and New Testaments 
may, however, be displayed to modern observation. 



300 CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCES, 

in past time is of one of two kinds, which for 
convenience' sake I will speak of on the one 
hand as testimonial evidence^ and on the other 
hand as circnmstantial evidence. By testimo- 
nial evidence I mean human testimony, either' 
direct or indirect; and by circumstantial evi- 
dence I mean evidence which is not human 
testimony. Let me illustrate by a familiar 
case what I mean by these two kinds of evi- 
dence, and Avhat is to be said respecting their 
value. Suppose that a man tells you that he 
saw a person strike another and kill him. 
That is testimonial evidence of the fact of 
murder. But it is possible to have circum- 
stantial evidence of the fact of murder; that 
is to say, you may find a man dying with a 
wound upon his head having exactly the form 
and character of a wound which is made by 
an ax, and with due precaution you may con- 
clude with the utmost certainty that the man 
has been murdered, and is dying in conse- 
quence of the violence inflicted by that imple- 
ment. We are very much in the habit of 
considering circumstantial evidence as of less 
value than testimonial evidence. ' And it may 
be in many cases, where the circumstances are 



MESSIANIC PROPHECIES. 301 

not perfectly clear and perfectly intelligible, 
that it is a dangerous and uncertain kind of 
evidence. But it must not be forgotten that 
in many cases it is quite as good as testimo- 
nial evidence, and that in many cases it is a 
great deal better than testimonial evidence. 
For example, take the case I referred to just 
now. The circumstantial evidence is better 
and more convincing than the testimonial. 
For it is impossible, under the circumstances 
that I have mentioned, to suppose that the 
man had met his death from any cause but 
the violent blow of the ax, and circumstantial 
evidence of murder having been done in that 
case is as complete and as convincing as evi- 
dence can be; it is evidence which is open to 
no doubt and no falsification. But the testi- 
mony of a witness is open to multitudinous 
errors. He may have been actuated by malice ; 
and it is possible, and constantly has hap- 
pened, that even a number of persons have 
declared that a thing has happened in this or 
that or the other way, when a careful analysis 
of the circumstantial evidence has shown that 
it did not happen in that way, but in some 
other; which cases are clear ones of the value 



302 CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCES. 

of circumstantial evidence, and of the fact that 
it may be evidence of the highest weight and 
of the highest authority.^' After presenting 
the evidence he said : " That is what I mean, 
ladies and gentlemen, by demonstrative evi- 
dence of evolution. An inductive hypothesis 
is said to be demonstrated when the facts are 
shown to be in entire accord with it. If this 
is not scientific proof, there are no inductive 
conclusions which can be said to be scientif- 
ically proved, and the doctrine of evolution at 
the present time rests upon exactly as secure 
a foundation as the Copernican theory of the 
motions of the heavenly bodies. Its basis is 
of precisely the same character— the coinci- 
dence of the observed facts with theoretical 
requirements." 

In proving an inductive hypothesis men 
point out an accumulation of facts which they 
find arranged as they might be expected if the 
hypothesis is true, as they could not be ex- 
pected if the hypothesis is not true. Accord- 
ing to this method the truth of Christianity 
has been considered in these chapters. Per- 
haps if Professor Huxley had collected the 
circumstantial evidences of Christianity as 



MESSIANIC PROPHECIES. 303 

industriously as he has collected those of 
evolution, he would have been as earnest an 
advocate of the one as he has been of the 
other. 

Circumstantial evidence may be used to 
sustain an opinion, or hypothesis, concerning 
a matter entirely beyond the reach of human 
testimony, as in the case Professor Huxley 
had in hand, or it may be used as collateral 
support to testimonial evidence. In regard to 
the supernatural career of Jesus ^Ye have the 
statements of the Xew Testament writers. 
Having this direct testimony, it is important 
that we examine its quality ; but here ^ve 
reach a department of Christian evidences on 
which it has not been my purpose to enter. 
Tlie quality of the testimony given by the 
early disciples is very ably discussed in the 
waitings of Paley. It has been my purpose 
to lay down the subject at about the point 
where Paley's Evidences of Christianity and 
the Horse Paulinas take it up. 

As all Christian evidences, except the bara 
statements of the Xew Testament writers, are 
in some sense circumstantial, I will indicate 
the outlines of the two departments to which 



304 CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCES. 

I have referred, by alluding to an illustration 
that was used in introducing this discussion 
in the jfirst chapter. The effort of Paley in 
the treatises just mentioned was chiefly to show 
tlmt the early disciples in making their state- 
ments concerning a series of flashes of light- 
ning and peals of thunder, spoke and acted, 
in very trying circumstances, like truthful 
men, and that the immediate effect of their 
statements was such as might be expected, 
if they spoke the truth, but not otherwise. 
The effort in these chapters has been to show 
that the moisture-bearing wind, the sultry 
air, and the gathering clouds which precede 
a shower, and the moist condition of the 
ground, the swollen streams and freshened 
fields seen after a shower, have been discov- 
ered in this case. 

In the conclusion to the Evidences of Chris- 
tianity, Paley, in a few comprehensive para- 
graphs, states the leading facts in the history 
of the establishment of Christianity, which 
constitute a foundation for our fiith. On these 
he remarks: "No man can say that this all 
together is not a body of strong historical 
evidence. ^^ Ko more truthful remark was ever 



MESSIANIC PROPHECIES. 305 

made. I will venture the additional remark. 



that, no man can say that the facts which are 
found to accompany this historical evidence, 
sustaining the relation of circumstantial evi- 
dences, do not powerfully re-enforce it. 



THE END. 



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